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Significant HC order on maintenance
IN A significant order, Justice ON Khandelwal of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, while quashing an earlier judgment by a family court, on Wednesday ruled that a woman who refused to live with her husband despite his requests did not have any legal right to claim maintenance allowance.
IN A significant order, Justice ON Khandelwal of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, while quashing an earlier judgment by a family court, on Wednesday ruled that a woman who refused to live with her husband despite his requests did not have any legal right to claim maintenance allowance.
The Lucknow family court had given the decision in the wife’s favour directing her husband Shiv Prakash Sharma to pay Rs 500 per month as maintenance with retrospective effect from July 1994.
Khaleeq Ahmad Khan, counsel for SP Sharma, informed the high court that his client, a resident of Sitapur, had married Asha, a resident of Lucknow, on June 5, 1993. Asha was not happy with the marriage and left her husband within a few months, going back to her parents without any substantial reason.
The counsel further submitted that Sharma filed a petition in the Sitapur court for restitution of conjugal rights.
Asha, on the other hand, filed a petition in the family court in 1994 and prayed that Sharma be directed to pay her a monthly maintenance of Rs 500.
The court in Sitapur passed a judgment in favour of the husband on January 31, 1998 and ordered Asha to live with him and perform her marital duties.
Asha, however, refused to obey the orders of the court and kept on pursuing her petition for maintenance.
The counsel also submitted that on September 13, 2005, the additional principal judge, family court Lucknow, passed an order in favour of the wife, directing Sharma to pay arrears since 1994 at the rate of Rs 500 per month.
Justice Khandelwal observed that since Asha had deserted her husband even when he was ready to keep her, she did not have any legal right to claim maintenance allowance. The family court judge erred in passing the order in favour of the wife, he observed.
