The commonest battlefield in maintenance litigation is not entitlement but income. Salaried respondents understate perquisites; the self-employed declare losses while running households that tell another story. Courts have answered with a consistent principle: where declared income is implausible, the standard of living the family actually enjoyed — and the respondent still enjoys — is the better measure. The craft lies in proving that lifestyle with admissible material.
The principle: means include capacity and conduct
Section 144 BNSS (the successor to Section 125 CrPC), Section 24 HMA and Section 20 of the DV Act all speak of the respondent\'s means. Means has never been read as the number on Form 16. It includes earning capacity, assets, and the inference that a person who spends at a certain level earns at least at that level. The burden-shifting is practical: once the claimant shows a lifestyle inconsistent with the declared income, the respondent must explain the gap — gifts, loans, family support — with evidence, not assertion.
What to collect, head by head
Using the material in court
Defending against lifestyle claims
Respondents with genuine reverses are not defenceless. Document the downturn — business closure papers, loan recalls, medical events — and explain visible spending with its true source: an employer-provided car, a sibling\'s sponsorship of a family event, accumulated savings now depleted. Courts distinguish between a lifestyle funded by current income and the afterglow of better years; the distinction must, however, be proved. Vague pleas of unemployment from an able-bodied professional attract notional income on earning capacity, lifestyle evidence or none.
Maintenance adjudication is ultimately an exercise in reconstructing financial truth from fragments. The side that arrives with a documented, itemised picture — of what the family spent, on what, and from where — almost always frames the court\'s view of what the other side can pay. Lifestyle evidence is not a substitute for the statutory affidavit; it is the audit that tests it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a court fix maintenance above the respondent's declared income?
Yes. Maintenance is fixed on means and capacity, not on the tax return alone. Where lifestyle evidence shows the declared figure to be unreliable, courts routinely attribute a notional income consistent with the proven standard of living and fix maintenance on that basis.
Is social media content admissible to show lifestyle?
Photographs and posts showing foreign travel, vehicles or luxury spending can be relied upon, subject to the law on electronic evidence — under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, a certificate under Section 63 for electronic records produced from downloads or printouts. They rarely prove income by themselves, but they powerfully contradict a plea of penury.
What is the role of the Rajnesh v. Neha affidavit?
The Supreme Court's format affidavit of assets, income and expenditure is mandatory in maintenance proceedings. Lifestyle evidence works alongside it: specific, documented spending that the affidavit cannot explain exposes suppression, and a false affidavit invites adverse inference and can invite perjury consequences.
How can the claimant obtain documents the respondent controls?
Through the court: directions to file bank statements, credit card statements, ITRs and GST returns; summoning records from employers, banks and authorities; and interrogatories. Self-help methods that break into accounts or devices risk illegality — court-directed disclosure is both safer and more credible.