Yes, you can absolutely use your spouse's Income Tax Returns filed before your divorce case as evidence to establish their true income for maintenance and alimony purposes in Delhi, since ITRs represent official, self-declared financial statements submitted to a government authority, making them particularly credible and difficult for your spouse to later disavow or contradict during the divorce proceedings.

Prior ITRs are especially valuable when your spouse attempts to understate their income in the divorce proceedings, since any income figure declared to the tax authorities in earlier years generally cannot be easily explained away, and significant discrepancies between historical ITR filings and current claimed income during litigation raise serious credibility questions that Delhi courts scrutinise carefully. This is particularly effective when your spouse's income appears to have suspiciously dropped precisely around the time divorce proceedings began.

To use prior ITRs effectively, you can request the court to direct your spouse to produce copies of their filed returns for recent years, or if you have independent access to these documents, submit them directly as documentary evidence supporting your claimed maintenance amount. Courts will examine the trend reflected across multiple years of ITR filings, looking for consistent income levels or patterns of business growth that make a sudden claimed downturn appear suspicious rather than genuine.

It is worth noting that ITRs, while powerful, are not always the complete financial picture, particularly for business owners or self-employed individuals who may have legitimately structured their finances in ways that don't fully capture their actual disposable income or lifestyle capacity, which is where combining ITR evidence with broader financial forensics can build an even stronger case. Consulting the team at Aapka Legal Advice can help you effectively present ITR-based evidence alongside other financial documentation to establish your spouse's true income before the Delhi family court.

Given the strategic value of properly leveraging tax return evidence in maintenance disputes, obtaining a second opinion from a retired judge on how to best present this documentation can help strengthen your overall financial claim. Experienced divorce lawyers and retired judges are available through Aapka Legal Advice's Delhi divorce lawyer directory.

In conclusion, your spouse's previously filed ITRs are indeed valuable and credible evidence for establishing their true income in Delhi divorce proceedings, and effectively presenting this documentation can significantly strengthen your maintenance and alimony claims.