Recently, the Rajasthan High Court expressed concern over the growing practice of saddling husbands with enormous retrospective maintenance arrears after years of delay in adjudication, warning that such directions can push salaried individuals into serious financial distress. While examining a dispute under the Domestic Violence Act, the Court emphasised that maintenance law was created to provide immediate financial support and basic dignity to a dependent spouse, and not to convert delayed proceedings into a mechanism for imposing crushing monetary liabilities years later.
The controversy began when a woman filed proceedings under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act in 2014 seeking maintenance, protection and compensation against her husband and his family members. More than a decade later, the Trial Court partly allowed the plea and granted ₹20,000 per month as maintenance along with ₹2 lakh compensation for alleged mental and physical harassment. The Appellate Court later reduced the maintenance amount to ₹10,000 for a limited period but directed payment retrospectively from the date of filing of the application. Counsel for the husband argued that he had no stable source of income before entering government service in 2018 and contended that forcing payment of arrears accumulated over several years was arbitrary and financially oppressive. The wife, on the other hand, defended the orders passed by the courts below.
Justice Farjand Ali observed that maintenance law was intended to prevent “destitution, starvation, vagrancy or a life of helplessness” and not to operate as a punitive mechanism against a husband. The Court observed that “the law never contemplated that maintenance proceedings would assume the nature of a money recovery suit or culminate into a colossal retrospective financial burden.” It further noted that delays in judicial proceedings cannot become “a tool for imposing crushing retrospective liabilities upon either party.” The Court held that directing payment from the date of filing of the application had created an excessive and unrealistic burden on the husband.
Consequently, the Court modified the orders of the courts below and directed that maintenance of ₹20,000 per month would be payable only from the date of the trial court’s order passed in 2025, while also quashing the ₹2 lakh compensation awarded for alleged mental cruelty.
Case Title: X Vs. Y
Case No.: S.B. Criminal Revision Petition No. 599/2025
Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Farjand Ali
Advocate for the Petitioner: Adv. Narendra Thanvi, Adv. Mahendra Thanvi
Advocate for the Respondent: PP Sri Ram Choudhary, Adv. Sarika Bishnoi
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