While dismissing a wife’s petition for maintenance after noting that the couple did not have any children and the incomes of the husband and wife were comparable to each other, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has called the petition an attempt to extract a pound of flesh from the husband.

The High Court was considering a Petition challenging the order passed by the Family Court rejecting the wife’s application under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act for the grant of pendente lite maintenance and litigation expenses.

The Single Bench of Justice Vivek Jain held, “In the present case, there is no child to maintain and there is no such financial disparity between the husband and wife whose incomes are comparable to each other.”

“The present petition is nothing, but an attempt to extract a pound of flesh from the husband, which cannot be permitted”, it added.

Advocate Rajesh Kumar Patel represented the petitioner.

Factual Background

The respondent/husband filed a divorce petition against the petitioner/wife. The parties got married in 2022. There was no issue born out of wedlock, and the parties had been living separately from each other since June, 2023. As per the application under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, the petitioner, as per her own admission, has been working with an annual income of Rs 20 lakh, and her allegation was that the respondent was having an annual income of Rs 30 lakh.

Considering that the wife had no other responsibility and she herself was earning Rs 20 lakh per annum in her own employment, the Family Court held that she was not entitled to any pendente lite maintenance.

Reasoning

The Bench did not find any error of jurisdiction or reasoning in the aforesaid order of the Family Court, considering the admitted income of the petitioner, which was Rs 20 lakh per annum, making her monthly income Rs 1.66 lakh.

The petitioner had thereafter retracted her admission and stated that her salary had been reduced to Rs 14.81 lakh. “Be that as it may be, even then her monthly salary would be Rs.1.25 Lakhs with no other responsibility”, it noted.

Thus, taking note of the fact that the petitioner had no child to maintain and there was no financial disparity between the husband and wife, the Bench dismissed the petition.

Cause Title: A v. B (Neutral Citation: 2026:MPHC-JBP:25498)

Click here to read/download Order


Madhya Pradesh High CourtJUSTICE VIVEK JAIN

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.