Mumbai: In a significant ruling, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court recently held, a woman is entitled to monthly maintenance from her husband only until her second marriage. This means, the monthly maintenance she has been receiving during and after her divorce from her husband cannot continue once she remarries.
A single-judge bench of Justice Murlidhar Giratkar delivered this important order while disposing of a plea filed by a 33-year-old woman seeking maintenance from her estranged husband even after her marriage to someone else. The couple had filed mutual divorce petitions before a family court in Nagpur and were granted a decree of divorce.
The family court had directed her husband to pay her a permanent alimony of over Rs 4 lakh. The order was however, modified, with a direction to the husband to pay a monthly maintenance of Rs 1,500 to his wife. The husband continued to pay maintenance for some months. However, he stopped doing so on learning that his wife had remarried in April 2018.
Aggrieved by this, the wife petitioned the bench of Justice Giratkar, seeking maintenance. She admitted she had remarried but argued that her husband had stopped paying maintenance much before the said month. Having considered the contentions, Justice Giratkar said, “There is no dispute that the husband and wife both have performed their second marriages.
The wife has performed second marriage in April 2018 and the husband has stopped paying the maintenance even before that date. The provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) clearly show that even divorced wife is entitled for maintenance. However, it is clear from Section 127(3)(a) of the CrPC that a wife is entitled for maintenance only till her second marriage,” Justice Giratkar ruled. The judge accordingly directed the husband to pay the pending maintenance to his now-estranged wife till the month of April 2018.