Index to the Judgment

FACTUAL BACKGROUND...................................................................2

SUBMISSIONS BEFORE THE COURT..............................................6

ANALYSIS & FINDINGS ......................................................................8

Distinction between Interim Relief/Maintenance and Ad-Interim Relief/Maintenance............................................................................................ 9

The Scope and Objective of Section 125 of Cr.P.C....................................10

Grant of Ad-Interim Maintenance: Judicial Precedents..............................12

Law of Grant of Ad-Interim Maintenance: Summarised and Clarified ....18

Whether ad-interim maintenance can be granted even in the absence of a specific application made to that effect? .......................................................21

Whether Ad-Interim Maintenance Is Payable from the Date of Filing of the Application or the Date of the Order? ...................................................26

The Decision.....................................................................................................28

DR. SWARANA KANTA SHARMA, J

1. By way of instant petition, the petitioner is seeking setting aside of the orders dated 24.05.2024 and 26.09.2024 [hereafter also referred to as ‘impugned orders’], passed by the learned Principal Judge, Family Court-01, South-West District, Dwarka Courts, Delhi [hereafter ‘Family Court’] in MT No. 435 of 2022, whereby the learned Family Court was pleased to direct the petitioner herein to pay ad-interim maintenance to the tune of Rs. 6,000/- per month, to the respondent, from the date of filing of application.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

2. Brief facts of the case are that the parties had got married on 18.04.2016 at Jhajjar, Haryana; though no child was born out of their wedlock. The petitioner herein is working as a medical representative in a private sector, while the respondent has studied up to 12th standard.

3. It is the petitioner‘s case that the respondent also runs a beauty parlour at her home along with her sister. Due to temperamental differences, the respondent had left her matrimonial home on 10.05.2021 along with her entire belongings. He alleges that she had also on earlier occasions, such as on 10.01.2020, left the matrimonial home and stayed at her parental home about one year. He states that no maintenance was claimed by the respondent during the said period. The petitioner states that after he had filed a petition for restitution of the conjugal rights, the respondent had, as a counterblast, filed several complaints and multiple criminal and civil proceedings against him and his family members.

4. The respondent‘s case is that the petitioner used to act as if he had forced into this marriage; and his family members i.e. father, mother and sister used to torture and mentally as well as physically harass the respondent, including for the purpose of bringing less dowry and stridhan. She also alleges that she had to leave her matrimonial home for one year in 2020 but on the insistence of petitioner and his family members that they shall treat her with respect now onwards, she had returned to her matrimonial home. She however states that the acts of cruelty continued even thereafter, and eventually, she was thrown out of her matrimonial home in May, 2021, after which she came to Delhi to reside with her parents.

5. The respondent, in the above background, had filed an application for grant of maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 [hereafter ‘Cr.P.C.’] in July, 2022. During the pendency of the interim maintenance application, the learned Family Court, vide impugned order dated 24.05.2024, was pleased to grant ad-interim maintenance in the sum of ₹6,000/- per month to the respondent. The petitioner was also directed to clear the arrears of maintenance from the date of filing of application. The said order is extracted hereunder:

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