On Thursday (22nd February), a family court in Indore ordered a wife to give Rs 5000 per month as maintenance to her jobless husband while giving a verdict on their plea to get separated. The husband’s lawyer Manish Jharaula said that the husband had filed a case in the court citing loss of studies and unemployment due to his wife. Notably, this decision of the court has come according to the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 in which the maintenance and alimony to be given to the separating partner is gender-neutral.
According to reports, in the year 2022, the girl proposed to the boy and said that she wanted to marry him. At that time the boy was studying in the first year of graduation. Both of them got married in the Arya Samaj temple and started living together in a rented house in Indore.
The husband said that after one month of marriage, his wife started harassing him constantly, which included physical and mental torture. He submitted that he tried to convince his wife many times but there was no change in her behavior. Troubled by mental torture, the husband left his wife and fled to Ujjain and started living with his parents.
The wife lodged a missing report of her husband. The police found him. During interrogation, he said that he is not on good terms with his wife and does not want to live with her. The matter reached the family court and after hearing all the arguments, the court ordered the wife to pay five thousand rupees every month to the husband for maintenance.
However, this is not the first time that an Indian court has recognised the gender-neutral nature of the provision of alimony and maintenance in the Hindu Marriage Act 1955. In November 2023, while hearing a case in the Delhi High Court, the bench of justices V Kameswar Rao and Anoop Kumar Mendiratta underscored the gender-neutral nature of the provision for maintenance pendente lite, alimony, and litigation expenses under the Hindu Marriage Act.
The Bench said that spouses with reasonable earning capacity, who choose unemployment without valid reasons, should not burden the other party with one-sided financial responsibilities. The court said, “The equivalence does not have to be with mathematical precision but to provide relief to the spouse during the pendency of proceedings, ensuring that parties do not suffer due to a lack of income.”
Notably, sections 24 and 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act deal with the issue of maintenance and alimony at the time of separation of a married Hindu couple. Section 24 says, “Where in any proceeding under this Act it appears to the court that either the wife or the husband, as the case may be, has no independent income sufficient for her or his support and the necessary expenses of the proceeding, it may, on the application of the wife or the husband, order the respondent to pay to the petitioner the expenses of the proceeding, and monthly during the proceeding such sum as, having regard to the petitioner’s income and the income of the respondent, it may seem to the court to be reasonable. Provided that the application for the payment of the expenses of the proceeding and such monthly sum during the proceeding, shall, as far as possible, be disposed of within sixty days from the date of service of notice on the wife or the husband, as the case may be.”
According to Section 25 of this act, “Any court exercising jurisdiction under this Act may, at the time of passing any decree or at any time subsequent thereto, on application made to it for the purpose by either the wife or the husband, as the case may be, order that the respondent shall pay to the applicant for her or his maintenance and support such gross sum or such monthly or periodical sum for a term not exceeding the life of the applicant as, having regard to the respondents own income and other property, if any, the income and other property of the applicant the conduct of the parties and other circumstances of the case, it may seem to the court to be just, and any such payment may be secured, if necessary, by a charge on the immovable property of the respondent.”
The section further says, “If the court is satisfied that there is a change in the circumstances of either party at any time after it has made an order under sub-section, it may, at the instance of either party, vary, modify or rescind any such order in such manner as the court may deem just. If the court is satisfied that the party in whose favour an order has been made under this section has re-married or, if such party is the wife, that she has not remained chaste, or, if such party is the husband, that he has had sexual intercourse with any woman outside wedlock, it may at the instance of the other party vary, modify or rescind any such order in such manner as the court may deem just.”