Claiming Maintenance From a Self-Employed Husband

Your husband runs a shop, a contracting firm or a consultancy. There is no salary slip, no Form 16, and his affidavit puts his income at ₹25,000 a month, or at nil. You know the household spends several times that. A claim for maintenance from a self employed husband is not defeated by the missing payslip. It is built from records his business is already required to keep: returns, ledgers, bank statements and loan files. This guide covers what to collect, how courts read turnover against declared profit and drawings, and how to answer a return that turns nil only after you file your petition.

Why "No Salary Slip" Is Not a Defence

Maintenance in India does not depend on how the husband earns. A wife can claim under Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (which replaced Section 125 CrPC), under Sections 24 and 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 for interim and permanent maintenance, under Section 18 of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, and under Section 20 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 for monetary relief. None of these provisions asks whether he receives a salary. They ask what he can reasonably pay, judged against his standard of living and the family's accustomed lifestyle.

Section 23 of HAMA requires the court to weigh the position and status of the parties, the claimant's reasonable wants, and whether she has independent income. In Rajnesh v. Neha, the Supreme Court set out disclosure norms: both spouses file an affidavit of assets, income and liabilities with supporting documents. A self-employed husband cannot satisfy that affidavit with a bare figure. He has to explain it, and where records under his control are withheld the court may draw an adverse inference rather than accept his number.

Business Records That Reveal His Real Standard of Living

Almost every business of any size leaves a paper trail, and much of it exists because the law demands it. Under Section 44AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961, specified professionals and businesses must maintain books of account; Section 145 prescribes the accounting method. Under GST law, registered persons must keep accounts and records and preserve them for 72 months. Ask for these and the case stops being a duel of affidavits.

The documents worth listing first are the three most recent income tax returns with the balance sheet, profit and loss account and capital account; GSTR-1, GSTR-3B and the annual GSTR-9 for the same years; bank statements for every account you know of; credit card statements; loan applications and sanction letters; the shop's rent agreement; vehicle registration and insurance; school fee receipts; and records of foreign travel.

The loan file is often the most useful document in the case. When he applied for a ₹40 lakh home loan or a ₹25 lakh cash credit facility, he would have declared an income sufficient to service it. A signed declaration to a bank sits awkwardly beside an affidavit of ₹25,000 a month. Retrieve it through the bank statement entries showing the EMIs.

Turnover, Profit and Drawings: What the Court Reads

Turnover is not income, and profit on paper is not the same as drawings. Courts understand the difference, and you should too, because a claim that treats turnover as take-home pay loses credibility.

Drawings are what he actually takes out of the business for household use. In a proprietorship they usually sit in the capital account. If the shop pays ₹85,000 a month in rent, credit card bills of about ₹90,000 are settled, two children attend a school charging ₹28,000 a quarter, and an EMI of ₹47,000 is debited, those outflows did not come from a ₹25,000 salary. Tracing them to specific bank debits is stronger than arguing about the profit figure.

Presumptive taxation is often raised as a shield. Under Section 44AD of the Income Tax Act an eligible business may declare 8% of turnover as income, or 6% where receipts are digital, with the turnover limit at ₹2 crore generally and ₹3 crore where cash receipts do not exceed 5% of total turnover. Section 44ADA allows professionals to declare 50% of gross receipts, subject to limits of ₹50 lakh, raised to ₹75 lakh on the same cash condition. These are statutory minimum deemed figures. A husband who declares exactly the floor for a business of that size has not proved poverty; he has proved he chose the minimum.

A worked scenario

A hardware and sanitaryware proprietorship in Nashik. Aggregate turnover in GSTR-1 for FY 2024-25 is ₹1.62 crore. The husband files under Section 44AD, declares 6% because most receipts are digital, and reports ₹9.72 lakh of business income. His affidavit states monthly income of ₹35,000 and he offers ₹15,000 as maintenance.

The wife's file shows shop rent of ₹85,000 a month, a car loan EMI of ₹47,000 on a ₹38 lakh vehicle, quarterly school fees of ₹28,000 for two children, card settlements averaging ₹90,000 a month, and four overseas trips in three years. Reconstructed from bank statements, the family's pre-separation monthly spend was roughly ₹1.9 lakh.

At the interim stage the court, applying the disclosure requirements in Rajnesh v. Neha, directs an affidavit with documents. Confronted with the loan file and card statements, the husband revises his stated income, and the court awards interim maintenance of ₹40,000 a month plus costs of the application. The final figure will depend on evidence; the point is that the ₹9.72 lakh declaration no longer anchors the case.

Proving Income in a Maintenance From Self Employed Husband Case

Three categories of record do most of the work.

GST returns

GSTR-1 shows outward supplies, GSTR-3B the monthly summary, GSTR-9 the annual return. Together they evidence turnover and its trend. A mismatch between GST turnover and the turnover shown in the profit and loss account is a fair subject for cross-examination, and monthly filings are difficult to suppress after the event.

Vehicles, travel and lifestyle

Registration certificates, car loan statements, the insurance premium on an expensive vehicle, passport stamps and booking records, club subscriptions. Each is a proxy for income when presented as a spending pattern rather than as isolated luxuries.

Cash trade

Cash sales are where under-reporting hides. Unusual cash deposits, uniform turnover across a festive season, or a shop with high footfall reporting modest sales are worth putting to the court. Do not allege concealment without a document. Ask the court to draw the inference from the record you have placed before it.

When to Seek a Business Valuation or Accountant's Report

Where the figures are genuinely opaque, the court can direct production of records and, in an appropriate case, rely on an accountant's analysis or a valuation of the business. A chartered accountant's report works best when it is narrow: reconcile GST turnover with the profit and loss account, quantify withdrawals visible in the bank statements, and compute the household surplus those withdrawals could support. Broad assertions that he must be earning crores, unsupported by reconciliation, are easily dismissed and can cost you credibility on the rest of your evidence.

Countering a Suddenly Filed Nil or Loss Return

A return filed after the petition, showing nil income or a fresh loss, invites scrutiny rather than sympathy. Courts look at the date of filing, the trend across earlier years, whether the lifestyle changed at all, and whether the books appear reconstructed. Compare the income declared in the three years before separation with the year after. If turnover held steady but profit collapsed, ask what changed besides the litigation.

Check whether a loss has been carried forward, whether the business has been split into a new proprietorship or a family entity, and whether drawings continued at the same level. GST filings often contradict a suddenly poor income tax return because they are filed every month, which is why the two sets of returns should always be read together.

Documents to gather now

• Three years of his income tax returns with balance sheet, profit and loss account and capital account

• GSTR-1, GSTR-3B and GSTR-9 for the same financial years

• Bank statements for every account, and all credit card statements

• Loan applications, sanction letters and EMI schedules for home, car and business loans

• Shop rent agreement, vehicle registration and insurance premium receipts

• School fee receipts, utility bills and household expense records from before separation

• Passport pages, visa stamps and travel booking records

Common mistakes

Treating turnover as income, and claiming a round crore figure without a document behind it. Ignoring drawings because the declared profit looks small. Waiting for the final order instead of applying for interim maintenance early. Filing without the disclosure affidavit the Supreme Court expects. Arguing about his profit when the bank statements already show the household's real spending.

Your next step is concrete: file your maintenance application together with an affidavit of disclosure, a list of the documents above, and an application for interim maintenance supported by the bank and loan records you already hold. Then ask the court to summon the rest from him and from the bank. The law does not require a salary slip; it requires a record, and most of that record already exists.

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for your specific facts.