In a significant judgement, a division bench of the MP high court has ruled that wife has a right to know the salary of her husband. Earlier, a lower court had rejected the petition of an estranged wife to get a pay slip of her husband. They had upheld the order on the ground that salary of a person cannot be disclosed to anyone under the Right to Privacy.
According to facts of the case, Sunita Jain, estranged wife of Pawan Jain, a BSNL employee, was receiving a maintenance allowance of Rs 7,000. The woman wished to know the exact salary of her husband as she felt that his salary was more than Rs two lakh per month and she deserved more as maintenance allowance. She filed an application in the district court seeking the pay slip of her husband, but her application was rejected. Then she sought to get it through RTI from BSNL but was again denied. Ultimately, the Central Information Commission (CIC) agreed to her petition and ordered BSNL to provide the pay slip.
Pawan challenged the order in the single-judge bench of the high court, which quashed CIC order, but a division bench comprising Justice S K Seth and Justice Nandita Dubey overturned the order while listening to an appeal filed by Sunita.
The court said that the Supreme Court order in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande Vs CIC on the basis of which the single-bench had quashed the CIC order was different in nature. In this case, it’s wife who wished to know the exact salary of her husband and she has a right to it.