Alimony issues

1. The husband filed for divorce and the wife is contesting it by submitting written objections. At present, the witness of the husband is going on. In the divorce case, the wife has not asked for any alimony. 

Opinion:There are another 5 ways of asking maintenance by her,so don't worry she is not dumb that she will forgive her begging.

2. However, in retaliation, the wife also slapped a DV case against the husband wherein she has demanded 50% of the husband's income per month as maintenance (towards accommodation, medical, incidental etc.). The DV case is also going on for long.  The DV case was filed by the wife after the divorce case. 

Opinion: DV cae is seperate case and Divorce case is a seperate case but affects divorce case if  the pettitioner has won the DV case prior to his divorce(A positive Impact).

For her Maintenance claim show your liabilities,show your the final in hand income after reducing all expenses and liabilities to make that claim minimum.

If she is capable to earn then you can thrash by arguing in court as she can easily maintain herself.

Collect her earning,educational,any properties any FD'S of her as to counter her claims.

3. My question is if the wife is not able to get any / unsatisfactory maintenance through  DV case, can she file a fresh claim in the divorce case asking for alimony. Can she halt the witness phase of the husband by putting an alimony claim at this stage? Or is she at liberty to do it at any point of time during the divorce case?

Opinion: As in opinion-1 I already stated she can ask in 5 ways.So,it depends by which way she goes.

Alimony is the final amount if which is passed after divorce.Interim maintenance is allowed during the pendancy of cases.

No,she can't halt the witness phase as divorce is seperate case,she can only request to the judge to allow interim maintenance.

A  spouse can filed maintenance application at any stage. If  such application is already filed in any other forum the same shall bar the person from claiming again in the family court.

I am not an advocate. That said... Yours is a very interesting situation but not uncommon. Most advocates are not familiar with such situations and will give you arbitrary answers. In reality, the law is not well-settled in this area when alimony applications are filed in multiple courts. You need to handle it through legal sophistication. When you say "fresh claim in the divorce asking for alimony" the answer is based upon the procedure she follows to do so. If she amends her divorce petition, then the answer is yes, she can get a ruling on the merits. If she has a stupid advocate and she is NOT reading this answer, then most likely she will file a maintenance application or an interim maintenance application in the divorce petition without amending the main petition. If she does so, you just hope that the maintenance application and the main petition are ruled upon at the same time, at the end. In the final arguments, you argue that only that which is prayed for in the main petition can be given. This is a matter of law. I can give you some enlightening Supreme Court judgments on this and her maintenance application will be thrown out.  But if she amends her main petition, well, then you have to go on the merit.

Now, lets talk about maintenance in DV case vis-a-vis that in the divorce case. What if it gets rejected? If the facts alleged are the same as in the Divorce case, then as soon as the maintenance is rejected in the DV case, you file an application in the divorce case to get her back on the witness stand stating that new evidence which was not available is now available (i.e. the DV case maintenance rejection order). (I am assuming that the two cases are proceeding in different Courts) You then ask her some simple questions:

a. Did you apply for maintenance in so..so.. court under the DV Act?

b. Is this the Order of that Court? Show her the Order and get it marked as Exhibit.

c. Are there any change in circumstances since that Order was passed?

The initial legal argument is applicable on procedural basis whether she amended her petition or not.  It gives you basis to get her maintenance application thrown out until she amends the petition. The second one requires the DV application to be rejected first. By default, that does not negate her maintenance application in the divorce case, unless you follow the above procedure. hope this helps. I am not an advocate but have gone through this thrash and won repeatedly in all Courts, all the way up to High Court, all on my own, sans any advocate. 

 @ Samir N :  Nicely explained. Thanks