Interim maintenance for women must begin from filing date to prevent financial hardship, rules Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court recently observed that women cannot be left to suffer financial hardship while courts take time to decide their pleas and ruled that interim maintenance must be granted from the date of filing of the application and not from the date of the court’s order.

A bench of Justice Rajiv Lochan Shukla was hearing a petition filed by one Sonam Yadav stating that a family court in Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh had granted her interim maintenance only from the date of the court order (April 3, 2025), rather than from the date she had filed the application (August 5, 2024).

“Permitting a woman to live in penury, while her application for interim maintenance is decided, cannot be the intent of the law. The grant of maintenance should date back to the filing of the application, as the filing of the application determines the exigency of seeking maintenance,” said the bench on December 17.

Sonam Yadav had approached the family court at Kaushambi seeking maintenance under Section 125 of the CrPC.

While her main application was filed in October 2023, she moved a separate application for interim maintenance on August 5, 2024.

On April 3, the principal judge, family court, Kaushambi granted interim maintenance but directed that it would be payable only from the date of the order, and not from the date on which the application was filed.

Aggrieved by this, Yadav approached the high court with a plea under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

The said section allows courts to issue necessary orders to prevent abuse of process, secure justice, and give effect to orders under the BNSS, acting as a safeguard for fairness, though not for reopening already decided matters or interfering with statutory investigation rights without cause.

Appearing for the applicant-wife, advocate Rajiv Sawhney relying on the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Supreme Court judgment in Rajnesh Vs Neha (2021), contended that the law had been settled that maintenance should normally be awarded from the date of the application.

He argued that this principle applies equally to interim maintenance, especially given the prolonged delays in disposal of such applications.

Advocate Shashank Kumar, counsel for the husband argued that the directions in the 2021 apex court judgment were confined only to final maintenance orders and did not extend to the interim maintenance granted during the pendency of proceedings under Section 125 CrPC.

The provision allows for speedy enforcement of maintenance for wives, children, and parents (father/mother) who are unable to maintain themselves, by ordering a person with sufficient means to pay a monthly allowance.

Modifying the family court’s order, the high court directed the interim maintenance be paid to Yadav from August 5, 2024, the date on which she filed her application for interim maintenance rather than from the date of the order.

Rejecting the husband’s contention, Justice Shukla held that a beneficial provision meant to protect a vulnerable class must be interpreted in a manner that advances its object.

“Orders for maintenance are passed for women and children, who have been forsaken by their husbands/fathers or have an otherwise valid reason to live separately or seek maintenance and who have no adequate source of income to maintain themselves,” the bench noted.

Referring to the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Rajnesh Vs Neha, the court held that there was no justification for excluding the interim maintenance from the principle that maintenance should ordinarily run from the date of the application.

“It is a sad reality that in many cases applications for interim maintenance remain pending for a long time,” the court said, adding that despite the statutory mandate to dispose of such applications within 60 days, delays are routine.

Saying that the objections were filed only in January 2025 and the order was passed in April 2025, well beyond the stipulated timeline, the bench said, “A litigant comes before the Court for a cause of action, which arises ‘in praesenti’ (at present time). Pendency of the proceedings in Court, without any order in favour of the litigant, should not be to the disadvantage of the litigant.”

Emphasising that the filing of the application itself reflects the urgency of the need for maintenance, the court held that pendency of proceedings without interim relief should not become a disadvantage to the applicant.