Right to maintenance is personal, can’t be enforced by legal heirs: HC

The Bombay High Court dismissed a plea filed by a Nanded resident seeking to pursue her late mother's appeal for enhancement of maintenance. The court held that the right to seek maintenance is personal and cannot be enforced by legal heirs after death. The court clarified that the daughter has the right to recover arrears of maintenance from her father after obtaining a succession certificate.

Holding that the right to seek maintenance is personal in nature and cannot be enforced by legal heirs of an individual after his/her death, the Bombay high court on Thursday dismissed a plea filed by a Nanded resident who had sought to pursue her late mother’s appeal for enhancement of maintenance awarded to her by a family court in 2021.

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The mother in her plea before the family court in 2017 had said that she was married in 1977. A few years after her marriage and birth of their daughter, the woman started residing separately, alleging that her husband was a womaniser and used to harass her physically and mentally. Later, she filed a complaint against him and a case under section 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) of the Indian Penal Code was registered against him, her petition said. The man was convicted by a court.

The woman further said that her daughter had filed a special suit for her share in her husband’s property and a court had passed order in her favour, but she had not been paid any maintenance. Therefore, she sought a monthly maintenance of ₹1.50 lakh. In February 2021, the family court decided on her plea and ordered her estranged husband to pay her ₹10,000 per month in maintenance.

The woman then moved the high court, contending that the amount was meagre and sought enhancement of maintenance to ₹1.50 lakh per month. During pendency of her appeal, the woman died on May 13, 2023, after which her married daughter applied to the court to allow her to pursue the appeal in capacity of legal heir of the deceased appellant.

A division bench of justice Ravindra Ghuge and justice YG Khobragade on Thursday rejected her plea on grounds that the right to claim maintenance under the personal laws of Hindus, Muslims and Christians is personal in nature. “It is an individual privilege of a person who is governed under the personal laws.”

The bench said under section 18 of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, a Hindu married woman and her minor children are entitled to maintenance, but the right is ‘right-in-personam’ or an individual prerogative and does not survive after death of the individual.

“The appeal is filed for enhancement of maintenance under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act and as the right of maintenance of wife against her husband is ‘in-personam’, the right to sue does not survive in favour of the applicant, her married daughter,” the court said.

The HC, however, clarified that the daughter, being a legal heir of the deceased appellant, had the right to recover from her father the arrears of maintenance granted to her late mother after obtaining a succession certificate from a competent court of law.