In a criminal revision filed before the Allahabad High Court under Sections 438 and 442 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 to challenge the legality, propriety, and correctness of an order dated 01-10-2025 by the Principal Judge, Family Court, Sambhal, whereby the application for maintenance preferred by the wife was allowed, a Single Judge Bench of Justice Jai Krishna Upadhyay affirmed the impugned order and dismissed the revision petition.
Due to marital discord, the husband (revisionist) and his wife (opposite party 2) began residing separately. Subsequently, the wife initiated proceedings for maintenance, pleading that she was unable to maintain herself, while the husband, possessing sufficient means, neglected and refused to maintain her. The Family Court allowed the application and thereafter, the husband preferred the present revision.
The husband’s challenge rested on the statutory disqualification against the grant of maintenance. It was contended that the wife left the matrimonial house without any sufficient or justifiable ground and was living in adultery with an advocate, so the express bar in the statute applied. To substantiate this, he relied on printouts of Instagram chats allegedly exchanged between the wife and the advocate.
The wife argued that the maintenance provision was a beneficent, social-welfare legislation designed to prevent vagrancy, that ‘living in adultery’ implied a continuous course of adulterous conduct and not mere isolated interactions or unsubstantiated suspicions, and that the unverified Instagram chats, devoid of mandatory statutory certification under the evidence laws, were inadmissible.
The Court held that the basic idea behind the grant of maintenance was to ensure that neglect and destitution are prevented for people who are unable to provide for themselves. It was said that such proceedings are essentially civil in nature and hence, while the standard of proof is not ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ as in strict criminal matters, the burden of establishing statutory disqualifications rests entirely upon the party alleging them. Noting the specific exception provided for the general rule of maintenance, the Court said that the legislative mandate required careful interpretation of the phrase ‘living in adultery’.
It was stated that the terminology does not include a single, fleeting lapse, nor could it be inferred from mere conversational interactions, professional associations, or unsubstantiated suspicions. The Court said that for a husband to successfully non-suit a wife’s claim for maintenance at the threshold, he must present clear and cogent evidence that ex-facie establishes a continuous adulterous conduct.
Considering that the husband’s claim rested solely on digital evidence in the form of Instagram chats, the Court stated that the admissibility of electronic evidence must be tested strictly at the anvil of Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. Referring to Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal (2020) 7 SCC 1, the Court stated that the statutory certificate is a mandatory condition precedent to the admissibility of evidence by way of an electronic record.
Stating that there is an ever-present danger regarding the authenticity of material in form of digital data, the Court stated that since the Instagram chats were not supported by the mandatory statutory certification, it would be incorrect in law to treat the same as admissible. Further, the Court stated that mere text messages on a social media platform, without corroborative evidence of physical intimacy or cohabitation, were thoroughly insufficient to legally establish that the wife was continuously ‘living in adultery’.
Hence, the Court found no jurisdictional error, material irregularity, or perversity warranting interference in the impugned order and stated that the Family Court correctly prioritized the beneficent nature of the maintenance provision. Thus, the criminal revision was dismissed.
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