A husband may have to pay monthly allowance to his estranged wife from the day she applied for maintenance and not always from the date of the court order, the Supreme Court has held.
The same ruling applies in favour of aged parents or children, both illegitimate and legitimate.
A Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and S.A. Bobde was interpreting Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code dealing with payment of maintenance.
The court said the aim of the law was to protect women from destitution after marital relation sours and rescue senior citizens and children from neglect.
The Bench said courts should not take it that payment of maintenance under the provision is only applicable from the day they order so.
In fact, it said Section 125 empowers the courts to direct a person to pay monthly sustenance to his separated spouse, aged parents or children from the very date they had applied for maintenance.
The judgment clarified the law on a petition filed by Jaiminiben Hirenbhai Vyas.
Ms. Vyas had quit her job after her marriage to take care of her family and children. When she separated from her husband, a family court refused to grant her maintenance on the ground that she was working before her marriage, so she would still be able to find work.
She appealed the High Court successfully. The court overturned the lower court order and directed her husband to pay her a monthly sum as maintenance. However, the High Court asked him to pay up only from the date of its order.
Aggrieved, Ms. Vyas moved the Supreme Court.
In his judgment, Justice Bobde wrote that courts were given two choices under Section 125 – direct payment of maintenance effective from the date of order or from the date an aggrieved relative applied for maintenance.
“It is incorrect to hold that, as a normal rule, the Magistrate should grant maintenance only from the date of the order and not from the date of the application for maintenance. It is, therefore, open to the Magistrate to award maintenance from the date of application,” the judgment recorded.
The Bench held that Ms. Vyas’ circumstances “eminently justified grant of maintenance with effect from the date of the application.”
