Disclaimer: This has been reported after the availability of the order of the Court and not on media reports so as to give an accurate report to our readers.
Allahabad High Court: In a revision application filed by a woman whose maintenance application was rejected, the Single Judge Bench of Lakshmi Kant Shukla, J., dismissed the petition and denied maintenance to wife whose brother shot her husband. The Court held that the husband suffered a grievous firearm injury caused by the wife’s family, which rendered him incapable of earning his livelihood. Thus, the husband, was not liable to pay maintenance.
Background
The wife applied Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (“CrPC”), seeking maintenance from her husband. But the same was rejected by the Trial Court vide the impugned order based on the fact that the husband became incapable of earning his livelihood due to a firing incident wherein the wife’s brother and his associates attempted to kill him. Hence, the present revision application.
Analysis
Upon perusal of the impugned order, the Court noted that the husband was a homeopathic doctor running his own clinic. However, on 13-04-2019, while he was engaged in his routine professional work, his wife’s real brother and father, along with four other persons, arrived at his clinic, hurled filthy abuses, and extended threats to his life. When resisted, the brother opened fire at the husband, causing firearm injury, and the pellet was still lodged in the bone of his spinal cord. According to medical advice, attempting to remove it might result in paralysis. Due to the said injury, the husband was unable to sit comfortably even for a short duration and, consequently, became unemployed and incapable of earning any income. Thus, the Trial Court rejected the wife’s application for interim maintenance.
The Court further noted that when confronted with the aforesaid, the wife could not overcome the aforesaid factual findings and merely emphasized that the husband was a doctor and, therefore, possessed sufficient means. She contended that despite having sufficient means, he failed to maintain her, and the Trial Court had committed a material irregularity.
Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the Court opined that it is a pious duty of a husband to maintain his wife, and ordinarily, a husband having sufficient means who neglects or refuses to maintain his wife cannot seek protection of the law. However, the present case stood on a different footing.
“In Indian society, it is well recognized that a husband, even in the absence of regular employment, is expected to undertake suitable work according to his capacity to maintain himself and his family.”
The Court stated that previously, the husband was capable of maintaining his wife and had sufficient means, but his earning capacity was destroyed due to the criminal act committed by the wife’s brother and father. Thus, it was the conduct of the wife’s side of the family that rendered the husband incapable of earning and left him without sufficient means.
Thus, the Court held that, “if a wife by her own acts or omissions, causes or contributes to the incapacity of her husband to earn, she cannot be permitted to take advantage of such a situation and claim maintenance. Granting maintenance in such circumstances would result in grave injustice to the husband, and the Court cannot shut its eyes from the reality emerging from the record.”
Accordingly, the Court dismissed the revision application, holding that the Trial Court did not commit any manifest illegality or material irregularity while passing the impugned order.
[Vineeta v. Dr Ved Prakash Singh, Criminal Revision No. 8658 of 2025, decided on 19-01-2026]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the petitioner: Dinesh Kumar Singh, Gaurav Suryavanshi
Buy Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 HERE
