Justice Shalini Singh Nagpal dismissed a revision plea by a 22-year-old engineering student and upheld an interim maintenance order of Rs. 2,500 per month in favour of his estranged wife.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that a husband cannot escape his legal duty to maintain his wife merely because he is a student. Justice Shalini Singh Nagpal dismissed a revision petition filed by a 22-year-old electrical engineering student and upheld a Family Court order directing him to pay interim maintenance of Rs. 2,500 per month to his estranged wife.
According to the reported order, the husband challenged an August 2025 order passed by a Family Court in Faridabad. Before the High Court, it was submitted that the couple had married in June 2020 under compelling circumstances when the husband was 16 years and 4 months old and the wife was 25 years old. The couple had no children. The husband later filed a petition for annulment under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act in early 2023. Thereafter, the wife moved an application under Section 125 CrPC seeking maintenance after three years of living separately.
The husband argued that he was a student and that his family was entirely dependent on the Rs. 3,000 widow pension received by his mother. He also contended that the wife had failed to prove that he was earning. It was further argued that the wife was not destitute because she was living with her parents and four brothers, all of whom were earning, and that the interim maintenance award therefore deserved to be set aside.
At the outset, the High Court noted that the maintenance provision is not meant to punish a husband for neglect. Rather, it is intended to prevent a destitute wife from being pushed into vagrancy and penury by providing speedy support for food, shelter and clothing. The Court relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Shamima Farooqui v. Shahid Khan (2015) and noted that the principle underlying Section 125 CrPC is to alleviate both the woman’s financial hardship and the mental agony suffered when she is compelled to leave her matrimonial home.
The High Court also noted the Supreme Court’s observation in that case that a husband’s plea that he lacks means because he has no job or because his business is not doing well amounts only to “bald excuses” and has no acceptability in law. It further noted that a healthy and able-bodied man who is in a position to support himself is under a legal obligation to support his wife, and that her right to maintenance under Section 125 CrPC, unless disqualified, is an absolute right.
Applying these principles, Justice Nagpal observed that the husband was healthy and suffered from no disability. The Court also noted that the Family Court had rightly disregarded his affidavit claiming zero income, observing that even a daily wage labourer could easily earn around Rs. 12,000 to Rs. 13,000 per month. On that basis, the High Court concluded that the husband had the means to support his wife.
On the quantum of maintenance, the Court took note of the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities and the wife’s reasonable wants. It held that Rs. 2,500 per month was barely sufficient even for the wife’s survival and found no reason to reduce the amount. The revision petition was accordingly dismissed.
