Whether court may refuse to grant maintenance pendente lite to wife to pressurise her to reconcile her differences with her husband?

To refuse maintenance pendente lite and expenses of litigation to the wife and her minor child, merely to pressurise the wife to reconcile her differences with her husband, cannot, but be branded as a patent misuse of the provisions of Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The challenge here is to be precisely such an order passed by the Additional District Judge, Amritsar, on Dec. 6, 1988, whereby, he declined maintenance to the wife and minor son With the observations, "I have kept the interest of Gurmit Kaur and her son in the picture in declining maintenance and litigation expenses to her at This stage and hope that this would quietly nudge her towards taking a less harsh view of Gurraj Singh's behaviour toward her..

Punjab-Haryana High Court

Smt. Gurmeet Kaur vs Gur Raj Singh on 27 January, 1989

Equivalent citations: AIR 1989 P H 223

S.S. Sodhi, J.

1. To refuse maintenance pendente lite and expenses of litigation to the wife and her minor child, merely to pressurise the wife to reconcile her differences with her husband, cannot, but be branded as a patent misuse of the provisions of Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The challenge here is to be precisely such an order passed by the Additional District Judge, Amritsar, on Dec. 6, 1988, whereby, he declined maintenance to the wife and minor son With the observations, "I have kept the interest of Gurmit Kaur and her son in the picture in declining maintenance and litigation expenses to her at This stage and hope that this would quietly nudge her towards taking a less harsh view of Gurraj Singh's behaviour toward her....."

2. The impugned order thus being wholly unwarranted and contrary to law is accordingly hereby set aside and the matter is remitted to the trial court with the direction to decide the wife and minor son's claim for maintenance and expenses of the litigation afresh, in accordance with law, The wife Gurmit Kaur shall, in addition, also be entitled to Rs. 1000/- as expenses of this litigation.

3. This petition stands accepted in these terms.

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