Court passes order on Leander Paes and Rhea Pillai domestic violence case after 8 years
India Today
The court has asked Leander Paes to pay Rs 1 lakh for maintenance and Rs 50,000 for house rent per month to Rhea Pillai from March, while she has to leave the house in which the two lived.
In the domestic violence case filed in 2014 by actress Rhea Pillai against tennis star Leander Paes, the application has been partly allowed by the Bandra metropolitan Magistrate court.
The court has directed Paes to pay an amount of Rs 1 lakh for maintenance and Rs 50,000 for house rent per month to Pillai from the month of March, 2022, subject to the condition that Pillai shall leave the house i.e. the Bandra house in which the two lived.
There would be an additional increase of 5% every year, from the month of March 2023, so that Pillai "shall not be compelled to knock on the doors of court again and again for enhancement of the amount of maintenance and house rent to meet the inflation, till the date up to which the said order remains in force," said the court.
Paes also has been directed to pay an additional amount of Rs 1 lakh to Pillai, towards the cost and expenses of the domestic violence application that she filed. He also has to continue with the expenses of maintenance, education and other necessities of their daughter until she attains maturity.
Pillai, daughter of the ex-British High Commissioner of India, studied in England up till graduation in economics. She pursued modeling, acting and a job as an instructor of Art of Living. Paes, on the other hand, is "minimally educated, a tennis player, who represented India across the world and won several competitions," noted the court. The court also observed that the two had been in a live-in relationship from 2005 and, after the birth of their daughter, the two moved to Bandra, where Paes's father and his partner started to stay with them.
However, differences arose between Pillai and Paes, with each levelling allegations against the other. Pillai alleged that Paes shirked away from his obligations and duty as a father and cheated on her, having relations outside their live-in arrangement. While Paes accused her of having an illicit relationship with one of her woman friends. He was also accusing her of vagabonding and having illicit relations with other men and her ex-husband. Both Pillai and Paes denied the allegations each had levelled against the other.
The court also observed that Pillai's allegations of domestic violence can be mainly divided into two parts. First - emotional violence, and second - economic violence.
