MAINTENANCE

Order for Maintenance of Wives, Children and Parents Provision u/s 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code 1973

1. If any person having sufficient means neglects or refuses to maintain
his -
(a)Wife (who is not remarried) unable to maintain herself; 
(b)Legitimate or illegitimate children who are minor and unable
to maintain themselves;
(c) Legitimate or illegitimate children who are major but physically or mentally disabled, abnormal and unable to maintain themselves;
(d) Parents (father or mother) unable to maintain themselves, the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, or Judge, Family Court, as the case may be, shall order such person to pay maintenance.

2. Allowance payable from the date of order or application.

3. Amount of Allowance: Rs. 500/-p.m., but Rs. 1,500/-p.m. for wives
only.

4. Jurisdiction : Judicial Magistrate, First Class, or Judge, Family Court, wherever established.

(a)Where the husband resides, or
(b)Where the wife resides, or
(c)Where they last resided together, or
(d)Where the applicant resides, or
(e)Where the opponent resides.

5. Failure to comply with the order of maintenance, the opponent is liable to be sentenced.    (One month's allowance = One month's imprisonment).
(a) If the wife refuses to live with her husband without justifiable grounds she is not entitled to claim maintenance, 
(b) If the wife lives in adultery, she is not entitled to claim or receive maintenance. Adultery means it should be the adulterous conduct, and not a single or occasional lapse from virtue. 
(c) If the husband and wife live separately by mutual consent, she
is not entitled.
(d) If the husband has contracted marriage with another woman or kept a mistress, it is a just ground for the wife to refuse to live with her husband.

6. Evidence is to be recorded and proceedings conducted in the presence of the opponent.

7. It is a summons case.

8. To refuse = Failure to maintain; to neglect = Default or omission to
maintain. Refusal or neglect may be implied from the conduct of the
opponent.

9. Maintenance means to provide for appropriate food, clothing and lodging (but does not include luxury or even medicine). To maintain means to keep in certain conditions. Maintenance is not payable in any other form or kind, but it has to be paid by way of money, and money is honey of humanity.

10. A mistress is not, even though her children are, entitled to claim maintenance.

11. The object of Section 125: It is a summary remedy to save the dependants from destination and vagrancy and to serve a social purpose.   The very object of the provision is to keep away the wolf of hunger. Jurisprudentially, this remedy is preventive rather than punitive.

12. The provision under Section 125 is independent of personal law, and
the applicant can pursue both the rights. 
Conditions:

(a) The applicant must file an application with the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, or Family Court. 
(b) The applicant must be unable to maintain himself/herself. 
(c) The opponent must have neglected or refused to maintain the
applicant.
(d)The opponent must have sufficient means. Sufficient means = not the property or the present income, but the capacity to earn money.

13. No limitation is applicable.

14. Revision by a Sessions Judge:    If the orders are passed by the Sessions Judge in revision, no further revisional application or appeal shall be entertained by the High Court or any other court, vide Section 399 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code 1973. However, if any orders in maintenance are passed by the Judge of a Family
Court, an appeal against the same shall lie only to the High Court and heard by the Bench of two or more judges. All the powers under Chapter IX of the Criminal Procedure Code 1973, which were conferred upon the Judicial Magistrate, First
Class, have now been delegated to the Judges of the Family Courts wherever such courts are established.

OTHER SOCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
15. The wife cannot be left at the charity of her relatives.

16. A serious flaw as it stands today is that a widowed daughter cannot get maintenance. However, an unmarried daughter can get maintenance from her father under the provisions of the personal law.

17.A wife can claim maintenance under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code as well as personal law - Permanent Alimony.

18. In case of a Hindu woman, she will be entitled also to claim maintenance u/s 18 of the Hindu Adoptions & Maintenance Act 1956.

19. Though under the provision of the personal law, i.e. Hindu Law, a widowed daughter-in-law can get maintenance from her father-in- law, but he is not obliged to maintain her, if he has no ancestral property. Also, if the father-in-law dies, his duty to provide for the widowed  daughter-in-law would  not fall  on  the  mother-in-law.
These are the great loopholes 

20. If the husbands have been missing, absconding or imprisoned (or whose husbands have deserted them), such women cannot claim maintenance from their fathers-in-law, because their husbands are living.