Lakshmi Mittal’s niece Swasti Mittal receives Rs 10 crore alimony

BENGALURU: In one of the biggest alimony settlements in a Bengaluru family court, the niece of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, Swasti Mittal, 27, is being paid Rs 10 crore by her ex-husband, 32-year-old Nepali businessman Nirvana Chaudhary. Their mutual consent divorce was decreed by the Fifth Additional Family Court in the city.

Fifty-seven jewellery items, worth Rs 10 crore, given by her parents at the time of wedding, have also been returned to Swasti.

In mutual consent cases, it is the parties who decide the alimony amount and they usually arrive with an MoU when approaching the court. Both parties agree to the amount before the family court judge, who grants them the divorce.

"It is possible to get such handsome alimony amounts only in mutual consent cases. In contested divorce cases, it is simply not possible to be granted so much money as alimony, however rich the parties might be," said a family court lawyer.

The alimony in this case is being paid in instalments. While Rs 8 crore has already been paid in two equal instalments, on April 4 and August 1 respectively, the remaining amount will be paid up on or before January 31, 2017, going by the terms laid out in the agreement.

Swasti and Nirvana had tied the knot at Leela Hotel, Mobor, in Goa on April 20, 2007 and the couple had proceeded to Kathmandu post their wedding. A private affair, the wedding was attended by top business honchos as well.

Differences cropped up soon and the couple parted ways after four years. In July 2011 Swasti moved back to her parents' place in Sadashivnagar and has been living with them since.

Under mutual consent, it is mandatory for the couple to be living separately for at least one year. In this case, the couple lived separately for two-and-a-half years before they decided to file their divorce petition. The couple has no children.

According to sources, the mutual consent divorce does not specify what went wrong in the marriage. The order cited 'irreconcilable differences and incompatibility of temperaments' as the reason.