Kerala High Court says it is the moral as well as legal obligation of a husband to maintain his wife and child irrespective of his financial capacity. (AI generated Image)A man not paying maintenance to his estranged wife and daughter is “economic abuse” and an act of “domestic violence”, the Kerala High Court has said, rejecting his request to reduce the court-ordered monthly maintenance amount of Rs 20,000, besides Rs 2 lakh as compensation for emotional distress. Justice Jobin Sebastian, dismissing the man’s application to reduce the maintenance granted to his estranged wife by the sessions and magistrate courts, said the amount was “neither excessive nor disproportionate” to the genuine needs of the woman and her daughter. “Undisputedly, non-payment of maintenance itself is an economic abuse which would certainly constitute an act of domestic violence; therefore, I am of the view that no further proof is required to show that the petitioner was subjected to acts of domestic violence in the matrimonial home at the hands of the respondent,” said the high court in the July 15 order.