Maintenance Can Be Denied To Wife If Adultery Is Established: Supreme Court
New Delhi: The Supreme Court recently ruled that if a husband can establish adultery in his wife, she can be denied the interim maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
The top court announced its verdict while hearing a petition filed by the husband against the grant of interim maintenance to his wife. The case emanates from a matrimonial dispute between the couple who married in July 2014. After a few years of the wedding, the wife left the matrimonial home in 2020. The same year, the wife approached a court seeking maintenance under Section 125 CrPC and also sought interim maintenance.
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The husband then filed an application under Secton 125(4) CrPC alleging that his wife was living in adultery and therefore not not entitled to interim maintenance. The husband submitted photographs and other electronic evidence to support his claim.
While hearing the case, a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Vipul M Pancholi clarified that such adultery should be clearly proved on the face of it.
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Earlier, the trial court had declined to decide his application at that stage, observing that the authenticity and originality of the material could be determined only after the evidence was formally exhibited in the main maintenance proceedings. It had also awarded Rs 25,000 each as interim maintenance to the wife and their son. After the Rajasthan High Court declined to interfere with the trial court’s decision to dismiss the husband’s application under Section 125(4) CrPC, the husband moved the Supreme Court.
Disagreeing with the approach adopted by the courts below, the apex court said the trial court had erred in refusing to decide the husband’s plea under Section 125(4) before the final adjudication of his wife’s maintenance case. It then ordered that the matter be remanded to the trial court to decide the application on merits.
