Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Apr 12: High Court has set aside the orders of the court below directing the father to provide maintenance to his two daughters and a son citing the adult children are not entitled to maintenance from their father under Code of Criminal Procedure.
The maintenance petition was filed by the two unmarried daughters and one son of the petitioner-father, before the Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Anantnag, on 10.07.2014. seeking maintenance under Section 488 of the CrPC when at the time of filing, all three children had attained the age of majority.
Justice Rahul Bharti has set aside the orders of the trial court by holding that the adult, unmarried daughters who are physically and mentally sound are not entitled to maintenance from their father under Section 488 of the Jammu and Kashmir Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
With these findings the court set aside maintenance orders passed in favour of two such daughters, observing that the statutory conditions for granting maintenance were not satisfied.
The son also had filed a separate petition for maintenance from his father under the same provision before the same Magistrate on 31.12.2014 which was allowed on 28.08.2017, and the Magistrate awarded him Rs 2,000 per month.
Aggrieved by these orders, the petitioner-father filed a criminal revision before the Principal Sessions Judge, Anantnag, which was dismissed on 26.02.2021 by holding the orders of the trial court as valid. The petitioner-father after these circumstances approached the High Court under Section 482 of the CrPC to invoke its inherent jurisdiction to quash the orders of the courts below.
The Court highlighted the statutory limitation for adult children and recorded in its judgment as “…his legitimate or illegitimate child (not being a married daughter) who has attained majority, where such child is, by reason of any physical or mental abnormality or injury unable to maintain itself…”
The court has concluded that both the Judicial Magistrate and the Principal Sessions Judge had overlooked this essential legal requirement while directing the petitioner-father to pay maintenance to his adult daughters which is in contravention of the law in force.
The court said that the orders of both the courts below were unsustainable by allowing the plea of the petitioner-father and set aside these orders. “Both the orders are held to be illegal and are hereby set aside”.
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