LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has ruled that rejecting a request of a woman by a family court to summon the employer of her estranged husband for the verification of his income to decide her maintenance suit is illegal.

Shehla Tahir moved the LHC after a family court of Lahore dismissed her application for permission to summon the principal and accountant of a famous private school with the original service record of her husband.

She had filed a suit for recovery of her maintenance allowance and also that of her minor son, claiming that she had married the respondent but his conduct was cruel towards her and she was expelled from the house along with her minor son and that the respondent failed to pay the maintenance to them.

She asked the family court to recover a maintenance allowance of Rs15,000 per month each with 10 per cent annual increase from the respondent.

Family court had dismissed woman’s plea to summon husband’s employer to verify income

In his defence, the respondent denied the allegations claiming that his monthly income was Rs17,976 and he had old parents and many other expenses to meet. The respondent said he shall not be in a position to pay huge maintenance allowance to the petitioner and her son.

However, it was not disputed that the respondent was a full-time employee at the school.

The petitioner asked the family court to summon the principal and the responsible officer of the school along with documents to verify the actual salary of the respondent. Stance of the petitioner was that the monthly income of the respondent from the salary and business was to the tune of Rs80,000 per month.

The family court, however, dismissed the application observing that there was no provision in the Family Courts Act, 1964 to summon a person whose name was not included in the list of witnesses of the parties especially when such a person had not tendered the document before the court.

Allowing the appeal of the woman, Justice Rasaal Hassan Syed observes that in maintenance suits question regarding fixation of quantum of the maintenance allowance characteristically depends on known sources of income and other sources of the income of the husband/father.

The judge notes that in the instant case the respondent admittedly is an employee of a school and claims to be in its service for a number of years. He says strangely enough the respondent did not produce any record keeper, accountant or responsible officer of the school to confirm the amount he was earning as salary.

Justice Syed observes that the petitioner herself applied to the court to summon the concerned officials along with the record for the assistance of the court to reach correct and fair determination of the issue and it could not have been declined on erroneous assumption and misinterpretation of law.

He maintains that the family court illegally refused to exercise jurisdiction and that too for extraneous reasons not admissible in law.

“The impugned order, as such, is legally untenable and is, accordingly, declared to be so,” he writes in his verdict allowing the application of the petitioner for summoning the accountant and principal of the school with service record of the respondent.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2022