Magistrate’s court in Mumbai (file photo)

Mumbai: A city magistrate court has held that a man repeatedly stealing money from his daughter-in-law’s purse to buy liquor amounts to economic domestic violence. The comments came after a 40-year-old Lalbagh man was directed to pay Rs 21.5 lakh as rent and maintenance dues to his estranged wife and minor daughter after the court found him and his family liable for financial manipulation and continuous domestic abuse including sexual harassment.Judicial Magistrate First Class JR Mullani also addressed the allegations against the woman’s brother-in-law, saying he had “boldly told” her in the presence of her father-in-law about the harassment, including attempts to force her to have physical relations, which the court called “gross and serious acts of domestic violence”.The magistrate concluded that the woman faced repeated mental and financial harassment from her husband and in-laws. The husband’s regular drinking, threats and verbal abuse, attempts to force her to leave her job, and mortgaging her gold jewellery, leaving her with a debt of Rs 2 lakh, were considered as domestic violence.The court further observed that theft by the father-in-law for liquor, mental torture by the mother-in-law, demand of the woman’s earnings and pressurizing her to buy a refrigerator, clearly amount to economic and mental domestic violence.The court ordered the husband to pay monthly maintenance of Rs 7,000 to the woman and Rs 5,000 to their minor daughter and house rent of Rs 5,000. These amounts were calculated retrospectively from February 24, 2016. The man was also directed to pay Rs 50,000 in legal costs, and the court issued a protection order barring the family from committing further acts of domestic violence.The couple met in 2007 at their workplace, a credit card company, and got married in 2012. According to the woman, the problems started soon after marriage when her husband pressured her to quit her job, started drinking heavily and abused her. When she became pregnant, he reportedly sought an abortion, claiming he could not manage the expenses. She refused and their daughter was born in 2013.The abuse escalated when her brother-in-law attempted to have physical relations with her late at night, when he was drunk and her father-in-law was sleeping nearby.In March 2014, she left the matrimonial home and started living with her brother. Her husband later filed for divorce. She filed her domestic violence application on February 24, 2016. Although interim maintenance was granted in 2017, the husband allegedly failed to make the payments regularly, and she filed an NC complaint for criminal intimidation in 2018.The husband denied the allegations in writing, but the respondents did not appear to cross-examine him or present evidence. The court proceeded without his evidence on August 2, 2025, finding that his sworn testimony was not challenged and there was no reason to disbelieve it.