The Allahabad High Court has observed that a husband cannot merely rely on social media messages to establish that his wife is continuously living in adultery without corroborative evidence of physical intimacy or cohabitation.
The observation was made by Justice Jai Krishna Upadhyay who was dealing with a husband’s petition challenging the grant of maintenance to his wife by the family court of Sambhal at Chandausi on October 1, 2025.
“It does not encompass a single, fleeting lapse, nor can it be inferred from mere conversational interactions, professional associations or unsubstantiated suspicions. For a husband to successfully non-suit a wife’s claim for maintenance at the threshold, he must present clear and cogent evidence,” the court further added. The observation was made by Justice Jai Krishna Upadhyay who was dealing with a husband’s petition challenging the grant of maintenance to his wife by the family court of Sambhal at Chandausi on October 1, 2025. In this backdrop, the court explained that living in adultery — a ground for denying maintenance to a wife under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) or now Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) — denotes a continuous, ongoing and habitual course of adulterous conduct. After finding that the messages exchanged on Instagram were not sufficient to establish the accusation of living in adultery, the high court in its judgment dated September 29 dismissed the husband’s challenge against a family court order directing him to pay maintenance to his wife.
“Even if, for the sake of argument, the contents of the unverified chats were to be perused, mere text messages on a social media platform without corroborative evidence of physical intimacy or cohabitation are thoroughly insufficient to legally establish that the wife is continuously living in adultery,” the court said.
