Indian cricketer Mohammad Shami has been ordered by the Calcutta high court to pay his estranged wife Hasin Jahan an alimony of ₹4 lakh per month, including maintenance for the couple’s daughter.
This is a significant bump from the ₹1.30 lakh per month ( ₹50,000 for Jahan and ₹80,000 for their daughter) he was ordered to pay by a district court in 2023.
Hasin Jahan had originally sought ₹10 lakh in total, ₹7 lakh for herself and ₹3 lakh for her daughter, but the lower court dismissed her request.
Why did high order Mohammad Shami to pay a higher alimony and maintenance to Hasin Jahan?
In her appeal, Hasin Jahan’s legal counsel argued that Mohammad Shami’s financial circumstances could support a higher alimony amount. According to his income tax return for the financial year 2021, Shami’s annual income was approximately ₹7.19 crore, or around ₹60 lakh per month. Jahan claimed her combined monthly expenses, including those for her daughter, exceeded ₹6 lakh.
The judge explained that the figure of ₹4 lakhs was decided considering Shami’s earnings, his daughter’s future, and the lifestyle his estranged wife, Hasin Jahan, was enjoying before the two parted ways.
“The opposite party/husband’s income, financial disclosure and earnings established that he is in a position to pay a higher amount. The petitioner wife, who has remained unmarried and is living independently with the child, is entitled to a levelled maintenance that she enjoyed during her continuance of marriage and which reasonably secures her future as well as the future of the child,” Bar And Bench quoted the judge as saying.
The bench said that while the question of granting an excessive amount of alimony and maintenance does not arise, it can not accept a lowball figure, keeping in mind Shami’s income.
Mohammad Shami married Hasin Jahan in 2014, but the couple separated in 2018 when Jahan filed an FIR against her husband and family, alleging domestic violence and abuse.