Interim maintenance should be based on the disclosed income of the respondent and should not consider the lifestyle of the respondent.

1. By this order I shall dispose of an application for grant of interim maintenance made by the petitioners/plaintiffs. The petitioners/plaintiffs have filed this petition/suit under Section 18, 20 & 23 of Hindu Adoption & Maintenance Act, 1956 against the respondent/defendant. Petitioner No.1 is daughter of respondent and is aged 5 years now. Petitioner No.2 is wife of the respondent. For considering the interim maintenance application, I need not go into the allegations made by the petitioner no.2 (wife) against the respondent giving details as to how respondent treated her and left the petitioners. Suffice it to say that the petitioner alleged that the respondent was leading a lavish lifestyle. He was earlier working in hotel The Claridges as General Manager of the hotel and was living with petitioners in D-203, First Floor, Defence Colony, a rented accommodation provided to him by the hotel. The rent of the accommodation was Rs.1,35,000/- per month. She alleged that the respondent was getting a salary, apart from the accommodation, of approximately Rs.4 lac per month from The Claridges Hotel. At the time of filing petition by the petitioners the respondent was in the process of leaving The Claridges and had intended to shift to Mumbai and take up service with Berggruen Hotel, Span Centre, South Avenue, Santacruz (W), Mumbai as Chief Executive Officer. The petitioners alleged that the salary of respondent when he joins Mumbai hotel may be around Rs.6 lac per month. At the time when this petition was filed, the respondent had not yet joined the Berggruen Hotel at Mumbai and had to join the new job after 15th August, 2007. The petitioner no.2 claimed a monthly maintenance of Rs.1,50,000/- for herself and same for the daughter. The petitioners also prayed for issuance of a permanent injunction restraining respondent from turning them out of house no. D-203, First Floor, Defence Colony and sought a decree directing respondent to continue paying Rs.1,35,000/- as rent for the house.

2. This Court while entertaining petition on 3rd August, 2007 passed an order restraining respondent from surrendering the tenancy or handing over possession of the premises bearing no. D-203, First Floor, Defence Colony, to any third party or forcibly dispossessing the petitioners. The respondent was also restrained from removing any movable articles housed in the said premises. At that time, the respondent was having a bank balance in his ICICI bank account Jorbagh Branch to the tune of more than Rs.6 lac. The respondent was restrained from withdrawing an amount of Rs.5 lac and he was allowed to operate the bank account only beyond the amount of Rs.5 lac. This was done at the instance of petitioners, who expressed an apprehension that with an intention of compelling the petitioners to accede to the unlawful demands of the respondent, he could stop paying the rental to the landlord and deprive the petitioners of their legitimate claim of maintenance.

3. After service of notice respondent refuted the allegations made in the petition in respect of treatment meted out to the petitioners or the allegations of neglect, which need not to be gone into. The respondent however, denied his pay package as stated by the petitioner and stated that salary of a General Manager was about Rs.1 lac p.m. plus house rent allowance, travel facility etc. which were given in accordance with nature of work. He also denied that his salary at The Claridges hotel was around Rs.4 lac p.m. or his present salary was Rs.6 lac p.m.. The respondent was asked to file his salary slip with the new company and affidavit about his salary. In response to this the respondent filed details of salary along with salary slip and income tax returns, which gave a fairly acceptable picture of the income of the respondent. As per this affidavit, the respondent’s gross annual salary was Rs.42,96,789/- out of this he had to pay tax at source to the tune of Rs.13,15,676/-. In proof of his gross