Additional Sessions Judge R K Yadav ordered Shanti Swaroop, a resident of Johripur in east Delhi, to pay Rs 2,000 every month to his wife and children. The order came after the judge caught him on the wrong foot by asking questions about seeds and crops that he claimed to have sown. Swaroop, contesting his wife’s appeal for enhancing the maintenance, failed to impress the judge with his basic knowledge of farming.

Criticising Swaroop’s attempt to dodge his responsibility, ASJ Yadav observed: “Facts projected by the respondent gives strength to the view that he had concocted a story to evade his responsibility towards the petitioner and her children, he. He conceals his actual income with a view to make the petitioner dance to his tune.”

His children are aged 12 and 16 years.

The court also censured Swaroop for claiming that his father had debarred him from ancestral properties and that he had no other means to pay the alimony. The court noted that he “persuaded his father to project that he has been debarred from property” to “evade maintenance liability”.