Contested Divorce & maintenance

For expert suggestions on matters relating to contested divorce and maintenance, you can contact Siddhartha Shah and Associates in Santacruz West, Mumbai. With an experience of 20 years, they can provide you the best legal advice. 

Given the situation it seems that the husband is directly in denial of providing maintenance to the wife so, if the wife goes for a mutual divorce under section 13B(1) of the Hindu Marriage Act, there will be pressure from the husband on her to surrender her claims to alimony or any kind of maintenance under section 125 of the CRPC  and if she does that then she wont be able to claim maintenance as stated under Section 127 (3) (c) of the CRPC as seen in the case of  Sri. Subhankar Majumder v. Banani Majumder, which reads “the woman has obtained a divorce from her husband and that she had voluntarily surrendered her rights to maintenance after her divorce, cancel the order from the date thereof.”

The wife can file for interim maintenance before the presiding magistrate to support her until the end of the trial. The magistrate can issue a direct order to the respondent’s employer or debtor to channel the maintenance amount to the wife before making payment to the respondent.

There are also many other monetary reliefs for a woman under the Domestic Violence act 2005, she can claim damages for harm done to her by the physical, s*xual, emotional, or mental abuse suffered in course of marriage. Interim maintenance is originally a concept of The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 as seen in section 24. There also exists a chance that the court might reject an appeal for interim maintenance as seen in the case of  Pradeep Kumar Saini Vs. Seema & Ors (2009).