Comprehensive Alimony Guidelines on Maintainance - SC Judgement by a Bench of Justices Indu Malhotra and R. Subhash Reddy

The court ruled that an abandoned wife and children will be entitled to ‘maintenance’ from the date she applies for it in a court of law.

Usually maintenance cases have to be settled in 60 days, but they take years in reality owing to legal loopholes.

It outlined specifics, including “reasonable needs” of a wife and dependent children, her educational qualification, whether she has an independent source of income, and if she does, if it is sufficient, to follow for family courts, magistrates and lower courts on alimony cases.

Significant Judgment providing comprehensive Guidelines

• Court laid down that while women can make a claim for alimony under different laws, including the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 and Section 125 of the CrPC, or under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, it “would be inequitable to direct the husband to pay maintenance under each of the proceedings”, urging civil and family courts to take note of previous settlements. 
• Both the applicant wife and the respondent husband have to disclose their assets and liabilities in a maintenance case. Any earlier case filed or pending under any other law should also be revealed in court.
•  the duration of a marriage should be accounted for while determining the permanent alimony.
• The judgment reiterated that Section 125 of the CrPC would include couples living together for years within its ambit.
• “Strict proof of marriage should not be a pre-condition for grant of maintenance under Section 125 of the CrPC,”