Lucknow, Nov. 27 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has reiterated that an able-bodied husband cannot avoid his legal obligation to maintain his wife by pleading unemployment. With this observation, the high court dismissed a criminal revision petition filed by a man challenging a family court order to pay Rs 2,500 per month as interim maintenance to his estranged wife. The high court upheld the order of the additional principal judge, family court, Lucknow, in this regard. The high court observed that the amount was "meagre" and found no illegality in the family court's decision to assess the husband's income on the basis of minimum wages, rejecting the husband's plea to refer the matter to mediation on a deposit of Rs 25,000. Justice Saurabh Lavania passed the judgment on November 24 on the criminal revision filed by the husband who challenged the family court order dated August 20, 2025 in the maintenance case. According to the wife's application claiming maintenance, the couple were married on November 28, 2013, in Jalandhar, Punjab. She alleged that shortly after the marriage, her husband and in-laws began harassing her for dowry. She specifically cited an incident of February 2, 2021, where she was allegedly assaulted by her sister-in-law and other family members. Following this, she claimed her husband abandoned her for 20 days before her brother brought her back to Lucknow on February 21, 2021. Reasoning that the husband is an able-bodied man, the family court presumed that even if he worked as a labourer, he would earn at least the minimum wage. The court calculated: "If a labourer works for 25 days in a month, he surely earns (500 x 25 = 12,500) rupees." The high court found no irregularity in the family court's order and observed: "Upon due consideration of the aforesaid, this court finds no illegality, irregularity, or jurisdictional error in the order impugned dated 20.08.2025 for the reason that a meagre amount i.e. Rs. 2500 per month has been awarded by the Family Court to the opposite party No. 2 towards the amount of maintenance." Consequently, the criminal revision was dismissed. MANOJ KUMAR SINGH...