Prayagraj (UP), Apr 1 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court has ruled that a woman is entitled to maintenance from her father-in-law even after her husband’s death.
A bench of Justices Arindam Sinha and Satya Veer Singh has said, “It is well settled that a husband is obliged to maintain his wife.” “This position has emanated from situations where the spouses have separated and the wife has sought for maintenance, either on the criminal side or under maintenance provisions in Hindu law. So much so, this obligation of the husband to maintain the wife attaches even after the death of the husband, allowing the widow to claim maintenance from her father-in-law,” the court added in its order dated March 17.
The high court made these observations while dismissing an appeal filed by one Akul Rastogi.
According to the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, a widowed daughter-in-law can claim maintenance from her father-in-law to the extent that she is unable to maintain herself from her own earnings or property.
The Act says a widow can only approach her father-in-law if she is entirely unable to obtain maintenance from her deceased husband’s estate, her parents’ estate or from her children and their estates.
The obligation becomes unenforceable if the father-in-law lacks the means to pay the maintenance amount from the coparcenary or ancestral property in his possession, particularly property from which the daughter-in-law has not already obtained a share. But such obligation ceases to exist if the woman marries again.
Section 21 (viii) of the Act provides a scope to the daughter-in-law, who becomes a widow before or after her father-in-law’s death, to claim maintenance from his estate as long as she does not remarry. PTI COR RAJ RC
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