When the husband works in Dubai, London or San Francisco and the wife litigates in Delhi, the hardest question is rarely entitlement — it is quantum. A foreign salary converted at the day's exchange rate looks enormous; the respondent's rent and taxes abroad are equally real. This article explains how courts fix maintenance under Section 144 BNSS (Section 125 CrPC), Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and Section 20 of the DV Act when the income arises abroad, and what each side must actually prove.
The statutory framework is unchanged by geography
Three routes to maintenance operate regardless of where the respondent earns. Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (formerly Section 125 CrPC) provides the summary remedy for a wife, children and parents unable to maintain themselves against a person with sufficient means who neglects or refuses to maintain them. Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 provides maintenance pendente lite and litigation expenses in matrimonial proceedings. Section 20 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 provides monetary relief within DV proceedings. "Sufficient means" has never meant means located in India; a respondent drawing a salary abroad is squarely within all three provisions.
The affidavit-of-assets discipline
In Delhi, maintenance proceedings are anchored by detailed affidavits of assets, income and expenditure which both parties must file. Courts have required full disclosure in a structured format covering income from every source, movable and immovable assets, bank accounts, liabilities and monthly expenditure. For a respondent employed abroad, the affidavit must grapple with the foreign employment specifically: employer, designation, gross and net salary in the foreign currency, housing and other allowances, tax and social-security deductions, and remittances to India. An affidavit that discloses only Indian bank balances while remaining silent on foreign employment is incomplete on its face, and the applicant should say so in a short, pointed response rather than a sprawling rejoinder.
Proving the foreign income
Employment documents
Offer letters, employment contracts and salary revision letters state the package authoritatively, including allowances that payslips sometimes split out. Visa category can corroborate minimum salary thresholds in some jurisdictions.
Payslips and tax filings
Recent payslips and foreign tax returns show actual gross and net figures and mandatory deductions — the raw material for a disposable-income calculation rather than a headline number.
Bank and remittance records
Foreign account statements and remittance records to Indian accounts show what the respondent actually has and sends. Regular remittances to his family are telling evidence of capacity.
Public and employer material
Professional networking profiles, employer letters and published pay data for the role and city are legitimate secondary material, particularly where the respondent withholds primary documents.
Where the respondent participates but discloses selectively, interrogatories and directions to produce specific documents — payslips for named months, the employment contract, foreign tax filings — keep the record concrete. Where he does not participate at all, the applicant's documentary mosaic plus his lifestyle becomes the basis for estimation.
Currency conversion and the cost-of-living adjustment
The single most litigated point of principle in these cases is arithmetic. A gross foreign salary multiplied by the exchange rate produces a rupee figure that overstates capacity, because it ignores what it costs to earn that salary where it is earned.
1. Establish gross foreign income
From contracts, payslips and tax filings, in the foreign currency, including allowances.
2. Deduct mandatory outgoings abroad
Income tax, social-security contributions and comparable compulsory deductions in the country of employment.
3. Account for genuine living costs abroad
Reasonable rent, transport and subsistence in the foreign city — claimed figures tested against the documents, not accepted on assertion.
4. Assess the applicant's needs in Indian terms
Housing, household expenses, children's education and medical needs in Delhi, measured against the standard of living the family enjoyed.
5. Fix a figure that balances both
Maintenance reflects the respondent's real disposable capacity and the applicant’s real needs, not a mechanical percentage of a converted gross salary.
Both sides should assist this exercise rather than fight it. An applicant who concedes the respondent's documented rent abroad gains credibility for her own expense claims; a respondent who inflates his foreign expenses to a level his own bank statements contradict loses it.
Standard of living as calibrating evidence
Quantum is not fixed at subsistence. The standard of living during the marriage is a recognised factor, and in NRI cases it is often richly documented: international travel, the children's school abroad or in a premium Indian school, the apartment the couple occupied overseas, vehicles, and property acquired abroad or in India. This material serves two purposes — it calibrates the applicant's reasonable needs, and it independently corroborates income where the respondent pleads poverty inconsistent with the life the family demonstrably led.
Adverse inference against concealment
A respondent abroad who files no affidavit, files a bare one, or refuses to produce payslips and tax records does not thereby cap his liability at what he admits. Courts may draw an adverse inference from non-disclosure and estimate income from qualifications, employment history, lifestyle and the available material — and the estimate in such cases tends to resolve doubts against the party who created them.
For respondents, the practical lesson is the mirror image: candid disclosure with documents, including honest foreign outgoings, is the only route to a quantum fixed on real numbers rather than on inference.
A note on what this article does not cover
Fixing quantum is one question; recovering it from a respondent whose income and assets sit outside India is another, with its own machinery — that enforcement dimension is dealt with in a separate article on this site. The point of the present discussion is narrower: the quantum stage is where the foreign-income record is built, and a carefully proved disposable-income picture at this stage makes every later stage, including enforcement, easier.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a foreign salary simply converted into rupees to fix maintenance?
No. Courts take the foreign income as the starting point but do not multiply it naively by the exchange rate. The respondent's genuine living costs abroad — rent, taxes, mandatory deductions, local cost of living — are weighed against the applicant's actual needs in India, assessed by Indian expenses and the standard of living the family enjoyed. The resulting figure reflects disposable capacity, not gross salary.
How is foreign income proved when the husband will not disclose it?
Through the affidavit of assets and income that both parties must file, and through documents: employment contracts, payslips, foreign tax filings, bank and remittance records, visa category, and even the respondent's own professional profile and employer communications. Where the respondent conceals or understates income, courts may draw an adverse inference and estimate income from lifestyle, qualifications and the material available.
Which provisions govern interim maintenance against an NRI respondent?
The same provisions as in any case: Section 144 BNSS (formerly Section 125 CrPC) before the Magistrate or Family Court, Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 pendente lite in matrimonial proceedings, and Section 20 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. The foreign location of the income affects proof and quantum, not the availability of these remedies.
Does the wife's standard of living abroad matter if she has returned to India?
Yes. The standard of living enjoyed during the marriage is a recognised factor. Evidence of the couple's life abroad — housing, travel, children's schooling, property acquired — helps the court calibrate what maintenance preserves a comparable standard in India, rather than reducing the wife to bare subsistence.