Wife denied maintenance under CrPC 125 since she had income earlier

In this case from West Bengal, wife was denied maintenance under CrPC 125 since she had good income earlier and could not give any reasons why she was unable to maintain herself now.  Maintenance was denied and court also mentioned the principle of “clean hands” with which party seeking relief has to approach the court.

PDF of judgment at link below:

rajesh-motwani-maintenance-denied-crpc-125

Main excerpt from judgment is given below:

It is a settled principle of law that a party seeking relief must come before the court in clean hands. The petnr could have stated that she earlier had the source of income but in present there is no such source available to her and stated the reasons for decline in her income. But the petnr has failed to impress upon the Court as to the circumstances that lead her to a situation where she has no source of income and her income has fallen to nil from Rs 1,33,320.00 per annum. As such I am inclined to hold primafacie that the petnr is capable of maintaining herself.

In view of the above discussion I find that the petnr has failed to satisfy the Court regarding the prima facie existence of the conditions that are required to be proved by the petnr in order to be entitled  to maintenance.