Durban - The Supreme Court of Appeals (SCA) has upheld a Durban judge’s ruling that a local businessman must pay his estranged wife the almost R400 000 he owes her in unpaid maintenance, or go to jail.
In the city’s high court last year, Judge Mahendra Chetty ordered that the man – who cannot be identified, due to the nature of the case – pay his wife or serve 30 days in prison.
In terms of a maintenance order his wife had secured in 2013, the man was supposed to be paying her R10 000 a month towards the care of their now teenage son.
But the only contributions he had made were between June and November 2013, when he paid her a relatively paltry R16 500.
This despite the fact that in papers before the court, the woman claimed her husband had splashed on a new car for his new partner and luxury vacations.
In July, the man lodged an application for leave to appeal Judge Chetty’s order in the SCA.
But last week, Appeals Judges Visvanathan Ponnan and Burton Fourie dismissed his application with costs, saying it had no reasonable prospect of success.
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