LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court has held that a wife cannot claim maintenance if her actions or omissions have contributed to her husband’s incapacity to earn, observing that granting relief in such circumstances would result in grave injustice.
Upholding the decision of the Family Court in Kushinagar, which rejected a woman’s plea for interim maintenance, the High Court noted that the husband’s earning capacity had been destroyed due to criminal acts committed by the wife’s family members.
A single bench of Justice Lakshmi Kant Shukla dismissed the criminal revision petition filed by the woman seeking interim maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
The revision petition challenged the order dated May 7, 2025, passed by the Additional Principal Judge, Family Court, Kushinagar, at Padrauna.
The Trial Court had dismissed the woman’s application after finding that the husband, a homeopathy doctor, had become incapable of earning his livelihood due to a firing incident orchestrated by the revisionist’s family.
According to the records, on April 13, 2019, while the opposite party (husband) was engaged in his professional work at his clinic, the real brother and father of the revisionist, accompanied by four others, arrived at the premises and hurled abuses at him. When he resisted, the revisionist’s brother opened fire, causing a firearm injury to the husband.
The judgment recorded that “the pellet is still lodged in the bone of his spinal cord, and as per medical advice, any attempt to remove the same may render him paralytic.”
As a result, the husband is unable to sit comfortably even for a short duration, has become unemployed, and is incapable of earning any income.
Counsel for the revisionist, Dinesh Kumar Suryavanshi and Gaurav Singh, argued that the impugned order was “illegal, arbitrary, and has been passed without due application of mind.”
They contended that the opposite party was a doctor and possessed sufficient means to maintain his wife.
The counsel further submitted that despite having sufficient means, the husband failed to maintain the revisionist, and that the Trial Court committed material irregularity in rejecting her claim.
However, Justice Shukla examined the provisions of Section 125(1) CrPC and the essential ingredients required for the grant of maintenance, observing that the present case stood on a different footing.
While acknowledging that it is ordinarily the “pious duty of a husband to maintain his wife,” the Court noted that the husband’s earning capacity was “completely destroyed due to the criminal act committed by the brother and father of the revisionist.”
“It is well settled that though it is the pious obligation of a husband to maintain his wife, however, there is no such explicit legal duty has been cast upon the wife by any Court of law. In the facts of the present case, prima facie, it appears that the conduct of the wife and her family members have rendered the opposite party incapable of earning his livelihood,” the Court observed.
The Court further held, “If a wife by her own acts or omissions, causes or contributes to the incapacity of her husband to earn, she cannot be permitted to take advantage of such a situation and claim maintenance. Granting maintenance in such circumstances would result in grave injustice to the husband, and the Court cannot shut its eyes from the reality emerging from the record.”
Referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in Shamima Farooqui v. Shahid Khan (2015), the High Court noted that a husband’s liability to maintain his wife is contingent upon his actual capacity to earn.
It concluded that the material on record clearly established that the opposite party had suffered a “grievous firearm injury” caused by the revisionist’s side, rendering him physically incapable of working.