RIGHT TO MAINTENANCE OF HINDU WOMEN UNDER HINDU
ADOPTION AND MAINTENANCE ACT
The right to maintenance derives from the concept of an undivided family. Such a family's head
is obligated to preserve its members, its wives, and its children. It is stated by Manu that “the
aged mother and father, the chaste wife, and an infant child must be maintained even by doing a
hundred misdeeds.”
Definition of Maintenance: It is a right to obtain fair necessities. Maintenance is defined by
Section 3(b) of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956. Maintenance includes, as per
this section,
A. Provision for food , clothes, residence, education and medical care and treatment in all
situations,
B. In the case of a daughter who is unmarried, the appropriate costs of an event
concerning her marriage often apply,
C. "Minor" means a person who has not reached eighteen years of age..
“In State of Haryana v. Smt. Santra, it was held that it is a liability created by Hindu Law and
arises out of jural relation of the partie”1
NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE RIGHTOF MAINTENANCE UNDER
THEHINDU ADOPTIONS AND MAINTENANCE ACT, 1956:
A. Wife's Maintenance: Section 18 of the 1956 Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act deals
with the maintenance and separate house of the wife.
A Hindu wife, whether married before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be
eligible during her lifetime to be maintained by her husband.
1
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A Hindu wife is entitled without relinquishing her maintenance demand to live separately
from her husband
(a) If he is guilty of desertion, (b) if she is treated with such cruelty as to cause reasonable
apprehension in her mind that living with her husband will be harmful or injurious. (c) If he is
suffering from leprosy in a virulent form. (d) If he has another living companion. (e) Where a
concubine is held in the same place that his wife lives in or usually stays with a concubine
elsewhere. (f) When, by conversion to another faith, he ceased to be a Hindu. (g) If there is some
other justification to justify living separately.”
If a Hindu wife is unchaste or ceases to be a Hindu through conversion to another
religion, she is not entitled to separate residence and maintenance from her
husband.2
Interim maintenance: In PurusottamMahakud v. Smt. Annapurna Mahakud Supreme
Court ruled that, under section 18 of the Act, the right to assert interim maintenance in a suit is a
substantive right. Since no form is necessary to implement the said right, the civil court can grant
interim maintenance in the exercise of its inherent power.
Maintenance pendente lite: The wife should be granted maintenance pendente lite after
considering the husband's status, even though there is no separate procedure in the Act for the
award of maintenance pendente lite. Even though the wife might be living separately, the duty to
maintain the wife remains on the husband.
Maintenance of wife / widow: Widow has no separate husband's property fee. Neither section
18 concerning the maintenance of a wife nor section 21 concerning the maintenance of a widow
shall provide for any maintenance fee for the separate property of the husband.
Separate right of residence: (I) the wife lived alone and all the children were raised by her
without the husband's help and support, and there was a simple case of desertion, the wife was
entitled to separate home and maintenance.
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(ii) The husband's thoughtless behavior to expel the wife from the house where she lived in
collusion with the house buyers and the police inflicted a deep wound on her that amounted to
cruelty, entitled the wife to live separately and demand maintenance;
(iii) Under clause (g), a demand for a wife's maintenance can also be upheld on grounds
protected by one or more provisions, i.e. provisions (a) to (f) of section 18(2), significantly but
not entirely. She should not be refused relief merely because the wife does not strictly
demonstrate the particular reasons urged by her,
A. Maintenance of a widowed daughter-in - law. Section 19 of the Hindu Act of Adoption
and Maintenance specifies that her father-in-law is entitled to hold a widowed daughter-
in - law. Section 19 goes as follows;
A Hindu wife, whether married before or after the beginning of this Act, shall be
entitled to have her father-in - law preserved after the death of her husband and to
the extent that she is unable to hold herself out of her own earnings or other
property.
In Raj Kishore Mishra v. Meena Mishra, it was held that where the daughter-in - law
should retain herself from the estate of the parents, there is no issue of father-in - law.
B. Maintenance of children and elderly parents who are infirm. Under Section 20 of the Act,
not only the father but also the mother are legally bound to maintain the son or
illegitimate son.
C. Maintenance of dependants: Section 21 of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act
deals with the rights of the deceased's dependants to claim maintenance from the
deceased's heir.
“Section 21 defined dependants: For the purposes of this chapter “dependants” mean the
following relatives of the deceased.”
His or her father.
His or her mother,
His widow, as long as she does not re-marry.
(iv) his or her son or grandson or great-grandson, given and to the degree that he or she is unable
to receive maintenance, in the case of a grandson from the estate of his or her father or mother,
and in the case of a great-grand-grand-son, from the estate of his or her father or mother, or from
the father or mother of his or her father.
(v) His or her daughter who is unmarried, or her unmarried granddaughter, or her unmarried
great-granddaughter, as long as she stays unmarried, provided that she not able to receive
maintenance, in the event of the grand-daughter from the property of her father or mother, and in
the event of the great-grand-daughter from the property of her father or mother, or of the father
or mother of her father.
(vi) His widowed daughter, given that she is is unable to receive maintenance, and to the degree
that she not able to is to do so,
(a) From her husband's property ;
(b) from her son or daughter, if any, or his or her property,or
(c) from her or his father's father-in - law, or from property of either of them..
(vii) any widow of her son or grandson, given that she does not remarry and to the degree that
she is not able to receive maintenance from the property of her husband, or her son or daughter,
if any, or her estate, or, in the case of the widow of a grandson, even from the estate of her
father-in - law.
(viii) His illegitimate son, or his minor, as long as he is a minor.
(ix) As long as she remains unmarried, his or her illegitimate daughter.
Maintenance of dependents (Section 22): (1) The heirs of a deceased Hindu are obligated to
hold the dependants’ of the deceased out of the estate inherited from the deceased by them. A
individual possessing a concubine and dying himself after the entry into force of the Act will
confer on the concubine a right to maintenance. Where no estate is inherited from their father by
the brothers, they can not be forced to contribute to their sister's marriage. If there is no
maintenance on the estate of a Hindu widow 's husband or son or daughter, it is to be treated as
contingent on the father-in - law pursuant to this provision, as Section 19 would not have
extended to such a situation.3
Amount of maintenance (Section23): Section 23 of the Act provides the amounts maintenance
which is a person entitled to. (1) It shall be in the discretion of the Court to determine whether
any, and if so what, maintenance shall be awarded under the provisions of this Act. The amount
payable by way of maintenance depends on the facts of each case and as such, no exception
could be taken to the amount fixed by the trial Court as well as the date from which the
maintenance could be claimed. The amount maintenance, whether fixed by a decree of court or
by agreement, either before or after the commencement of this Act, may be altered subsequently
if there is a material change in the circumstances justifying such alteration.
Maintenance when to be a charge: A claim for maintenance by a dependent under this Act
shall not be charged on the property of the deceased or any part therein, unless it is made by
court ruling by the will of the deceased, by arrangement between the dependent and the owner of
the property or part of the estate, or otherwise.
EFFECT OF TRANSFER OF PROPERTY TO THE RIGHT TO MAINTENANCE :
Where a depenadant has the right to obtain maintenance of a property and that property or any
part thereof has been transferred, the right to get maintenance can be enforced against the
transferee where the transferee has knowledge of the right or where the transfer is free of charge;
but not against the transferee for consideration and without notice of the right to maintenance.4
3
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4
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SECTION-18 MAINTENANCE OF WIFE
(1) Subject to the provisions of this Section, a Hindu woman, whether married before or after the
beginning of this Act, shall have the right to have her husband preserved during her lifetime.
(2) A Hindu wife will be entitled to live separately from her husband without losing her
maintenance claim-(a) if he is guilty of desertion, that is, of leaving her without good cause and
without her permission or against her will, or of intentionally abandoning her; (b) if he has
treated her with such cruelty as to cause her reasonable fear at it would be harmful or risky if she
continues living with her husband; (c) if he has a virulent form of leprosy; (d) if he has another
living wife;.
(3) A Hindu wife shall not be entitled to separate residency and maintenance from her husband
if, through conversion to another faith, she is unchaste or ceases to be a Hindu. Under the Hindu
Adoptions and Maintenance Act of 1956, as it stands today, even if the husband is a member of a
common family, his wife has no right to support her husband's relatives who are incapacitated
and there. In such circumstances, only two alternative remedies are available to the aggrieved
woman: I a partition suit in respect of the estate of her husband or ii) a divorce petition for
maintenance demand. But, alas, neither of these two alternatives, in the face of a ruthlessly
endless list of cases awaiting judicial adjudication in the Indian Courts, gives any real solace to
the aggrieved woman and her children. Therefore, it is important to dig extensively into and
critically examine the existing legal context in this respect.5
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