Maintenance, Custody & Financial Independence

The oldest defence in a maintenance case is a small salary certificate, and it is now easier to manufacture than ever. The Supreme Court's directions in Rajnesh v. Neha changed the arithmetic: both parties must file an affidavit of assets, income and expenditure in a prescribed form, and the court is entitled to draw an adverse inference where the disclosure is evasive. Custody, meanwhile, is decided on the welfare of the child and nothing else — not on who earns more, and not on a mother's employment, which is still argued against women far more often than it should be.

We do not rely on what the other side files. Income tax returns, GST filings, bank statements, credit card spending, vehicle and property records, business registrations and lifestyle evidence are placed before the court so that the real capacity is visible and the affidavit can be tested against it. Interim maintenance is pressed at the earliest hearing rather than at the end, because a woman without money in month one cannot litigate through to month thirty. On custody we build around the child's continuity — school, medical care, routine, the people already caring for them — and we prepare visitation arrangements that will actually hold, since an unworkable schedule returns to court within the year.

Interim maintenance from an early stage, a final figure that reflects genuine capacity, and arrears enforced through the recovery mechanisms the statute provides. On custody, an arrangement built around the child rather than around the dispute, with the other parent's relationship preserved wherever it is safe to do so.