Calcutta High Court orders Shami to pay 4 lakh alimony to wife and daughter

New Delhi (India) July 2: India fast bowler Mohammed Shami's estranged wife, Hasin Jahan has appreciated the recent Calcutta High Court decision that ordered the cricketer to pay her and their daughter Rs 4 lakh in alimony each month. She claimed that the court had only asked him to execute his obligations.

She said, “I used to model and act before I got married. Shami forced me to quit my profession. He wanted me to live only a housewife’s life. I loved Shami so much that I happily accepted it. But now I have no earnings of my own. Shami has to bear all the responsibility for our maintenance. That is why we had to approach the court when he denied this.”

The High Court overturned a lower court's 2018 ruling that had granted far smaller sums. They ordered Shami to pay Rs 1.5 lakh per month for Jahan's personal expenses and Rs 2.5 lakh for their daughter's maintenance.

This represents a substantial increase over the ₹1.30 lakh a month (₹50,000 for Jahan and ₹80,000 for their daughter) that a district court mandated he pay in 2023.

The lower court denied Hasin Jahan's initial request for ₹10 lakh, which included ₹7 lakh for herself and ₹3 lakh for her daughter. 

Jahan's attorney claimed in her appeal that Shami's financial situation justified a larger alimony payment. Shami earned about ₹7.19 crore a year or about ₹60 lakh a month according to his income tax form for the fiscal year 2021. According to Jahan, her monthly expenses including those for her daughter totally reached ₹6 lakh.

The Court said, “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." 

The judge clarified that the amount of ₹4 lakhs was determined by taking into consideration Shami's income, the future of his daughter, and the standard of living of his former wife, Hasin Jahan. 

Mohammad Shami got married to Hasin Jahan in 2014 but the two parted ways in 2018 after Jahan accused her husband and family of domestic abuse and violence in a formal complaint.

Aadrika Tayal