The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court passed a verdict that a divorced Muslim woman is entitled to get maintenance from her husband under the Criminal Procedure Code. This is valid even after the 'iddat' period gets over, as long as she continues to remain unmarried. As per Islamic law, the iddat period is three months after the divorce, before a woman can remarry.
The HC said that this is beneficial to divorced Muslim women, who will be able to have access to maintenance money even after the iddat period. This order was passed after a petition was filed by a woman whose husband didn’t want to continue giving her maintenance amount.
Justice Pawar observed, “In view of the judgment of Bano vs Imran Khan rendered by the Supreme Court in 2009, I have no hesitation in holding that the view taken by the revisional court is contrary to the law laid down by the Supreme Court. The revisionist wife, being a divorced Muslim woman, was entitled to claim maintenance under Section 125 CrPC.”
The woman had moved a trial court to get maintenance for herself and her two children. The court had passed an order that the maintenance should be awarded to them. However, the husband had challenged the order by filing a revision plea. The Additional Session Judge (ASJ) overturned the order and said since they both were Muslims, she was not entitled to receive maintenance under Section 125 of the CrPC.
The wife then moved the High Court, and it observed, “There is no illegality in the order passed by the trial court in which it had awarded maintenance to the wife and her minor children under section 125 of CrPC.”
The verdict further asked the ex-husband to pay the maintenance amount from the date of filing of the application before the trial court.