The Madhya Pradesh High Court observes that a husband can't escape liability of maintenance of be merely citing faults in wife's pleadings. Hyper technical attitude cannot be adopted in maintenance cases.

The husband filed a Revision petition before the High Court against the order of the family court rejecting his application under section 127 Cr PC for reduction in the maintenance allowances granted by the family court in proceedings under section 125 of Cr PC.

The Court while rejecting the Petition observed that:

"The object of the maintenance proceedings is not to punish a person for his past neglect, but to prevent vagrancy by compelling those who can provide support to those who are unable to support themselves and who have a moral claim to support. The phrase "unable to maintain herself" in the instant case would mean that means available to the deserted wife while she was living with her husband and would not take within itself the efforts made by the wife after desertion to survive somehow. Section 125 Cr PC is a measure of social justice and is specially enacted to protect women and children."

The Court further observed:

"The destitute wife who is unable to maintain herself cannot be victimised only on the basis of her fault. The hyper technical attitude cannot be adopted in such types of maintenance cases. As such the petitioner cannot escape the liability of maintenance of the child and wife on excuse that she has done some fault in her pleadings and proceedings of the case."

Sandeep Kumrawat v. Antima Kumrawat