Supreme Court Rules: Divorced Muslim Women Entitled to Maintenance

Supreme Court Rules: On Wednesday the Supreme Court govern that divorced Muslim women will have the right to ask for maintenance from their ex-husband under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

The Supreme Court also said that the law applies to all women in the country and it doesn’t matter what religion they belong to.

The decision came after Justices BV Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih ruled that Section 125 CrPC applies to all women when a Telangana Muslim man named Mohd Abdul Samad challenged the High Court's decisions to pay his ex-wife Rs 10,000 a month as a support until the divorce was finalized.

However, his petition was denied by the Supreme Court because it was against a Telangana High Court order.

When the decision was given, Justice Nagarathna said, “We are hereby dismissing the criminal appeal with the major conclusion that Section 125 CrPC would be applicable to all woman and not just married woman.”

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The report also states that the peculiar law will be given more importance than the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 which exercises the right of divorced Muslim women and their husbands to cover issues related to or in between the course of such divorce.

Justice Augustine George Masih added, “We are inclined to conclude that equivalent rights of maintenance ascertained under both, the secular provision of Section 125 of CrPC 1973, and the personal law provision of Section 3 of the 1986 Act, parallelly exist in their distinct domains and jurisprudence.”

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“Thereby, leading to their harmonious construction and continued existence of the right to seek maintenance for a divorced Muslim woman under the provisions of CrPC 1973 despite the enactment of the 1986 Act.”

The Supreme Court made it clear that a Muslim divorced woman who is filed under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) can still apply to the laws of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019.

Justice Nagarathna also noted that Section 125 CrPC also applies to Muslim women who got divorced through the illegal practice of triple talaq.

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