Bombay High Court Directed : Woman To Pay Maintenance To Ex-husband U/S 25 Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
Bombay High Court Directed : Woman To Pay Maintenance To Ex-husband U/S 25 Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
The Bombay High Court bench in Aurangabad upheld a couple of orders by a lower court in Nanded that directed a woman school teacher to pay Rs 3,000 in interim monthly maintenance to her estranged husband and asked the headmaster of her school to deduct Rs 5,000 from her salary every month and deposit the same with the court towards unpaid maintenance since August 2017.
While rejecting a petition filed by the woman teacher against the lower court’s order, Justice Bharati Dangre cited Section 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 as well as Supreme Court rulings from time to time. Section 25 of the Act states that a court may order the respondent to pay the applicant maintenance and support in the form of a lump sum, monthly or on a regular basis.
After hearing arguments from both sides, Justice Bharati Dangre stated that the scope of Section 25 of the Act cannot be constrained by not making it applicable to a divorce decree issued between the husband and wife.
The woman argued that after marrying in April 1992, she separated from her husband and obtained a divorce decree in January 2015. She contended that the alimony order was made much later and that it could not be upheld.
“A conjoint reading of both the provisions in the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 would reveal that both the sections in the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 are enabling provisions and confer a right on the indigent spouse to claim maintenance either pendente lite (depending on the outcome of the litigation) or in the nature of permanent alimony and maintenance,” Justice Dangre ruled, citing sections 24 and 25 of the act. “Since Section 25 has to be viewed as a provision for destitute wife/husband, the provisions will have to be broadly construed in order to salvage the remedial entailments,” the bench added.
The Bombay High Court added, “It is open for the court to decide the application filed by the husband under Section 25 of the Act of 1955, seeking monthly maintenance, by way of final proceedings, pending which, the application for interim maintenance filed under Section 24 of the Act of 1955, has been rightly entertained by the judge and the husband has been held entitled to interim maintenance while the proceedings under Section 25 are pending.”
