In a criminal revision filed before the Madhya Pradesh High Court by the father of a major unmarried daughter to challenge an order by the Principal Judge, Family Court, Satna, whereby an amount of Rs. 2000 was awarded to the major unmarried daughter towards monthly maintenance pendente lite, but no amount was awarded to the wife on the ground that she did not appear to be the legally wedded wife of the petitioner, a Single Judge Bench of Justice Dwarka Dhish Bansal dismissed the criminal revision, holding the daughter to be entitled to maintenance.
The father submitted that the application filed under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) was not maintainable as it had been filed by his major unmarried daughter. It was also submitted that the daughter had repeatedly assaulted the father and filed several complaints against him, which also disentitled her from any maintenance. It was contended that if the daughter wanted maintenance, she could have prayer for conversion of the application into an application/suit under Section 20(3) of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, in absence of which neither the family court had jurisdiction to entertain the application for granting the maintenance nor the daughter was entitled to any maintenance.
The Court noted that a joint application for maintenance was filed by the major unmarried daughter as well as the mother and that maintenance was claimed with the contention that the petitioner had deserted them, which left them in a position where they were not able to maintain themselves. It was stated that the application filed to seek maintenance for the major unmarried daughter was under the wrong provision i.e. Section 125 of CrPC.
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However, the Court relied on N. Mani v. Sangeetha Thgeatre & Ors. (2004) 12 SCC 278, P.K. Palanisamy v. N. Arumugham (2009) 9 SCC 173, and The Patna Municipal Corporation & Ors. v. M/s Tribro Ad Bureau & Ors. 2024 (8) Supreme 160, and stated that merely mentioning wrong provision in the application/petition would not come in the way of justice.
The Court held that merely because the daughter had filed the application under Section 125 of CrPC instead of Section 20(3) of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, it could not be said that the daughter was not entitled to any maintenance pendente lite or that the family court had no jurisdiction to pass the order of maintenance on the application under Section 125 of CrPC. It was noted that the requirement under Section 20(3) of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act whereby the major unmarried daughter has to show that she is not in a position to maintain herself was fulfilled in the present case.
The Court observed that if the father does not pay or deposit the interim maintenance amount, strict action would be taken against him for recovery of the said amount and that the respondents may pray for correction of the pending application to remove the technical objection being raised by the father. Thus, the Court dismissed the criminal revision.
