Maintenance General Principles of Maintenance

A woman in Kharghar is divorced after twelve years of marriage. She has not worked since her wedding, her ex-husband earns well, and her parents are elderly. Her first question to a lawyer is simple: can I still claim money from him? The answer depends on which of three layers of law applies to her: her own personal law, the criminal-court remedy that applies to everyone regardless of religion, and, for Muslim women, a special statute passed after one famous case in the 1980s.

In two minutes

Maintenance flows from three sources: personal law (which names who owes whom), the magistrate's summary remedy in section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 (formerly section 125 of the CrPC) which applies to all religions, and, for divorced Muslim women, the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 as read by the Supreme Court.

The rest of this chapter

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