77-year-old man pays for slapdash divorce

A septuagenarian may have been forced to spend his sunset days alone as his grown-up children have pressured him to end his marriage, his second wife has claimed.

The pensioner, however, will have to shell out Rs3,000 to pay maintenance to his estranged wife, 24 years his junior, after the Bombay high court refused to stay the family court’s order granting monthly maintenance.

The husband’s advocate, however, told the court that he is now 77 years old and has medical expenses to bear with his Rs10,000 monthly pension. Admitting the husband’s petition, justice DB Bhosale and justice RY Ganoo on Tuesday refused to stay the maintenance order and said the amount was reasonable and not even one-third of his pension.

The case, however, is no run-of-the-mill divorce petition. The couple married in 2001 at the age of 68 and 44 respectively and lived together for two days. It was re-marriage for both of them after their spouses had passed away.

In his appeal against the maintenance awarded by the family court in September last year, the husband stated that their marriage was “a non-starter from day one” and never consummated. He alleged that the wife had already milked him of Rs13 lakh at the time of the marriage.

The wife, in a reply filed before the family court in February last year, stated that she had had to part ways at the behest of his two sons and their wives who had strongly opposed their marriage on July 28, 2001.

She had stated that their marriage was consummated according to Hindu Vedic rites and registered subsequently. She had claimed maintenance under the Hindu Maintenance and Adoption Act, 1956, stating that as his legally wedded wife she had the right to his property and title. Her advocate Sulabha Dhamale also told the court that she had two daughters from the first marriage to look after.

The wife has also filed a petition seeking restitution of her conjugal rights. She claimed that the sons and daughters-in-law of her husband restrained her from living with him though she was still willing to stay with him.

In her affidavit of last year, she has stated that her husband’s children had deliberately kept him away from her and threatened her with dire consequences if she did not leave him alone. The case will come before the court for final hearing in due course.