NEW DELHI: Giving women significant autonomy to choose whether to return to their estranged husbands, the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a wife is entitled to receive maintenance from her husband even if she refuses to comply with a court decree in favor of the man by restitution of conjugal rights.
A bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said: “The preponderance of judicial thought weighs in favor of upholding the wife’s right to maintenance under section 125 CrPC, and mere passing of a decree for restitution of conjugal rights at the instance of the husband and non-compliance thereof by the wife would not, by itself, be sufficient to attract disqualification under section 125 “
Writing the judgment, Justice Kumar said that whether the wife had legitimate reasons for not complying with the decree of restitution of conjugal rights would depend on the facts of each case and there could be no blanket decision that the refusal to return to the marital home depriving the wife of her right to food.
“It would depend on the facts of each individual case and it would have to be decided, on the basis of the available material and evidence, whether the wife still had valid and sufficient grounds for refusing to live with her husband, despite such a decree,” the court said. court.
“In any case, a decree of restitution of the conjugal rights guaranteed by the husband, together with his non-compliance by the wife, would not immediately determine either his right to maintenance or the applicability of the disqualification provided for in article 125, paragraph 4, of the CrPC.” he added.
Quashing a Jharkhand High Court order that had denied maintenance to a woman for refusing to join the matrimonial home despite the husband obtaining a decree of restitution of conjugal rights, the Supreme Court said that the facts stated by the woman to the refusal to return to her husband – the fact that she refused to cover the costs of her treatment after the abortion and that she was not allowed to use the bathroom in the marital home – were facts about her ill-treatment and constituted compelling reasons for her reluctance to get back together with him.
Finding that the woman was totally dependent on her brother for survival, the Supreme Court ordered the husband to pay her monthly maintenance of Rs 10,000 and pay maintenance arrears since August 2019 in three installments until December 2025.
