Maintenance Lawyer at Saket Court, Delhi

Saket: Seat of the Family Courts for South and South East Delhi

The Saket court complex is where family court litigation for South Delhi and South East Delhi is heard, which makes it the natural forum for most maintenance disputes arising in these districts, whether a family lives in Malviya Nagar, Saket, Hauz Khas, Vasant Kunj, Chattarpur, Mehrauli, Kalkaji, Govindpuri, or the surrounding localities. A maintenance claim can arrive here on its own, as a stand-alone application under Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, or as part of a wider matrimonial case already running through the same family court structure — a divorce petition, a restitution of conjugal rights case, or proceedings under the Domestic Violence Act. Because several of these routes can run at once, knowing which one to lead with, and how the others fit around it, is the first real decision in most maintenance matters.

Who Can Claim Maintenance, and Under Which Law

Indian law gives a maintenance claimant more than one statute to choose from, and they are not interchangeable. Section 144 BNSS, which replaced Section 125 of the CrPC when the new code came into force on 1 July 2024, lets a wife (including a divorced wife who has not remarried), a minor child, a major child unable to maintain itself due to physical or mental abnormality, or a dependent parent apply for maintenance regardless of religion, without any other case needing to be pending. For Hindus specifically, Sections 24 and 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 provide maintenance pendente lite and permanent alimony, but only alongside a divorce, judicial separation, or similar matrimonial petition, while the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 gives a Hindu wife or a widowed daughter-in-law an independent civil claim that does not need any other litigation. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 adds a further route: Section 20 lets a Magistrate order monetary relief, including maintenance, for an aggrieved woman and her children, and its definition of “aggrieved person” reaches women in a relationship in the nature of marriage, not only formally married wives. Picking the right combination of these, rather than filing all of them without a plan, is what keeps a maintenance case coherent.

How the Amount of Maintenance Is Decided

There is no statutory table or fixed percentage for maintenance in Indian law. Courts instead weigh the income and earning capacity of both parties, the standard of living enjoyed during the marriage, the reasonable needs of the claimant and any children including education and medical costs, the paying party’s other financial responsibilities, and the property each side holds. The Supreme Court’s decision in Rajnesh v. Neha (2020) made this assessment more structured by directing every maintenance applicant and respondent, across all the different maintenance laws, to file a sworn affidavit disclosing income, assets, and liabilities in a set format — that affidavit, and how well it withstands scrutiny, is often what decides the final figure more than any single argument made in court. The same judgment also directed courts to account for maintenance already awarded under a different law when fixing a fresh amount, so a claimant cannot recover the same period twice over under two different statutes.

Filing or Defending a Maintenance Application at Saket

A maintenance application is filed with proof of the marriage or relationship, income details for both sides, particulars of any children, and evidence of the standard of living during the marriage or relationship attached from the outset, since the sworn financial disclosure affidavit required under Rajnesh v. Neha has to be filed early in the proceeding rather than produced later. Once the respondent is served, courts are directed to dispose of an application for interim maintenance within sixty days, though contested jurisdiction, incomplete disclosure, or disputes over the underlying marriage can extend this in practice. Maintenance, once granted, is ordinarily payable from the date of the application rather than the date of the final order, at the Magistrate’s discretion, so delay in listing a case does not by itself reduce the amount eventually due for the intervening period. On the defending side, the same disclosure obligation applies, and a defence built around accurate, verifiable figures — rather than a bare denial of ability to pay — is what tends to hold up under cross-examination.

When Maintenance Overlaps: BNSS, the Hindu Marriage Act, and the Domestic Violence Act

It is common, not exceptional, for a maintenance claimant to have more than one available remedy at the same time — Section 144 BNSS alongside a Hindu Marriage Act petition, or a Domestic Violence Act application running in parallel with both. Section 26 of the Domestic Violence Act expressly allows monetary relief to be sought inside an existing civil, family, or criminal proceeding rather than only as a fresh case, which is part of why these claims tend to converge rather than stay separate. The risk this creates is double recovery or inconsistent orders from different courts on the same facts, which is exactly what the Rajnesh v. Neha guidelines were designed to prevent by requiring courts to adjust a fresh award against maintenance already paid under another law. Structuring which claim leads, which follows, and how each is pleaded so the amounts are properly set off against each other is a large part of what separates a well-run maintenance case from one that stalls in cross-litigation.

Enforcement: What Happens When Maintenance Goes Unpaid

An order is only useful if it is paid, and Section 144 BNSS gives the Magistrate who passed the order the power to enforce it directly rather than sending the claimant to a separate execution proceeding. On proof of default without sufficient cause, the court can issue a warrant to levy the unpaid amount in the same way a fine is recovered, and can sentence the defaulter to imprisonment of up to one month, or until payment, whichever comes first — a step that can be repeated for continuing default, subject to the Magistrate’s discretion. An application to recover an arrear must generally be made within one year of the amount falling due, so tracking missed payments and moving promptly matters as much as securing the original order. Maintenance awarded under the Hindu Marriage Act or the Domestic Violence Act is enforced somewhat differently, through the machinery attached to those proceedings, which is one more reason the choice of which law to proceed under is made with enforcement in mind from the start, not only the initial award.

Mutual Consent Divorce and Settling Maintenance for Good

A significant share of maintenance questions at Saket are resolved not through a contested hearing but as part of a mutual consent divorce under Section 13B of the Hindu Marriage Act, where both sides agree a permanent alimony figure — either a one-time lump sum or a structured schedule of payments — as part of the overall settlement. A settlement clause that clearly records this as full and final satisfaction of all maintenance claims, under every law that could otherwise apply, is what actually prevents the question being reopened later; a vaguely worded settlement can leave the door open to a fresh Section 144 BNSS or Domestic Violence Act claim even after the divorce is final. Where a contested matter is instead heading toward trial, understanding this settlement route early still matters, since it shapes what a realistic outcome looks like well before a final order is ever passed.

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Manuja Law Partners — Chamber, Lawyers Block, Saket Court, New Delhi. Principal chamber: Chamber S-307, 3rd Floor, Delhi High Court, Pragati Vihar, New Delhi 110003. Call 99115 44811 (also WhatsApp) or write to manujalawyers@gmail.com for a consultation on a maintenance claim or defence at Saket Court. This page provides general information about the law as it stands and is not a guarantee of any particular outcome; every matter turns on its own facts and documents.