She followed it up with a Google review of the patisserie there. The online posts, not quite out of the ordinary, may not have garnered a staggering number of views but they certainly caught the eye of her estranged husband’s lawyers who brought them up in court to discredit her claim of living modestly and seeking interim maintenance from her husband.
MUMBAI: A woman checked into a five-star hotel and posted her “wonderful check-in experience” on social media.
Her lawyer then had to painstakingly convince the court that she was hoping to activate an income stream through the online reviews.
Although, not the only determining factor in such cases, lawyers have noted the trend of one’s behaviour on social media playing out in cases of divorce, alimony and child custody in recent years. A man may not post about his income on social media but his profile on his company website may name him among senior employees.
Kranti Sathe, a prominent family court lawyer with a practice of over three decades, said certain allegations based on social media content are further scrutinised by the court. “This can be relied on in court but also has to be proved either with documents from the company or his income tax returns,” said Sathe. “Everything will be looked at with suspicion,” she said, and if he is found lying or misguiding, the court may certainly draw an inference “about his conduct, if not about his income,” said Sathe. “Sometimes it gets complicated but there are ways of reaching the truth,” she said.
At a time when people choose to amplify their lives on social media, a person’s digital footprint becomes evidence for divorce lawyers to draw up their character sketch before the family court.
The eagerness of some women to post pictures of their gourmet dinners and matcha runs could hurt their alimony prospects too. Shah cited the example of a client whose husband once bar-hopped from Juhu to Bandra, posing with different women and leaving a digital trail on his Instagram account, which his wife screenshotted to use against him in court. There are also cases where a man’s ‘likes’ on other women’s posts or shared pictures standing too close to them, are used to illustrate the narrative of infidelity.
But this cuts both ways, Shah said. “You can’t claim you are living hand-to-mouth and have six matchas a day and post about it on social media,” said Shah.
Sample this: Last year, in a dispute over the payment of maintenance to his estranged wife, the Bombay High Court (HC) took note of pictures highlighting a wealthy businessman’s Kenzo T-shirt, his extravagant birthday bash and trips to Macau to foil his claim of penury.
“While today the court takes cognisance of a person’s digital footprint, a stage may come when it will be the most important, or the primary evidence in a case,” said Shah.
