The Bombay High Court, in Agnes Lily Irudaya v. Irudaya Kani Arsan, held that unmarried daughter though the attained majority is entitled to claim maintenance from the father.
The substantial question of law raised before the court was whether a major daughter is entitled for maintenance under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and another issue which arises out of present proceedings, whether a mother is competent to file proceedings claiming maintenance on the behalf of her major daughter.
In the following case, the petitioner-mother claimed the maintenance for her daughter, turned major, for the educational expense in family court. The said application was rejected on the grounds that maintenance can be granted to the minor children only and major daughter cannot claim maintenance through her mother. Hence, the petitioner was not entitled to claim maintenance for the major daughter under Section 125 of the Cr.P.C.
The matter further came before the high court of Bombay, Justice Bharti H Dangre, agreed on the contentions presented by the petitioner and relied upon the judgment of Hon’ble Apex court case of Noor Saba Kahtoon vs. Mohd. Quasim 1997 (5) SCAL 248 and another case of Bombay High court, Vijaykumar Jagdishrai Chawla vs. Reeta Vijaykumar Chawla III (2011) DMC 687 (DB).
In Noor Saba Kahtoon vs. Mohd. Quasim, court dealt with the same issue as to whether children of Muslim parents are entitled to grant maintenance under section 125 of Cr.P.C. after they attain majority, the Hon’ble Apex Court by making a reference to Section 3 (1) (b) of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce ) Act, 1986, observed that children are entitled to claim maintenance under section 125 Cr.P.C. for the period till they attain majority or able to maintain themselves, or in case of females, till they are married.
Similarly, in Vijaykumar Jagdishrai Chawla vs. Reeta Vijaykumar Chawla, the court held that unmarried daughter is entitled to receive the amount of maintenance from her father or mother so long she is unable to maintain herself out of her own earnings. Hence, the father cannot be extricated from his liability to maintain his unmarried daughter.
On the next substantive question as to whether a mother can claim for the maintenance on the behalf of her daughter, the court observed the following:
“Even if the daughter would have filed the proceedings, the parameters for deciding her entitlement would have been the neglect and refusal of the father to pay for the educational expenses and other expenses of the daughter. The daughter can be a competent person to file her own application claiming maintenance. However, in order to avoid multiplicity of the proceeding, no fault can be found in the application preferred by the mother claiming maintenance with a view to meet the expenses of the daughter, since the wife has not claimed maintenance for herself and she has not denied the factum of her employment. In such circumstances, it appears that the stand taken by the respondent is hyper technical plea and the respondent cannot be absolved of his liability to meet the necessary expenses of his major unmarried daughter who is persuading her education and her needs cannot be met by petitioner wife who has her limited source of earning. Hence, the technical objections cannot came on a the way of granting substantive relief in favor of petitioner to claim an amount of maintenance for meeting the expenses of her daughter’s education.”
