Wife Who Claimed Financial Capacity to Win Child Custody Cannot Then Seek Maintenance, Rules Allahabad HC
Justice Lakshmi Kant Shukla dismissed a revision challenging the Family Court's refusal of interim maintenance to the wife, holding that her own assertion of financial capacity in a custody proceeding estopped her from fastening the entire burden on the father.
The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a criminal revision filed by Roji Bano and her minor daughter against an order of the Additional Principal Judge, Family Court-05, Prayagraj. The Family Court had, on 26 August 2025, awarded interim maintenance of Rs. 3,000 per month to the minor daughter under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure but refused any interim maintenance to the wife. Justice Lakshmi Kant Shukla, sitting singly at Court No. 87, found no ground to interfere, reasoning that the wife had herself asserted financial independence before a court to secure custody of the child and could not, in the same breath, claim that she was unable to maintain herself.
The Dispute Before the High Court
The underlying proceeding is Maintenance Case No. 815 of 2023, filed by Roji Bano against her husband Akib alias Prince before the Family Court, Prayagraj. When the Family Court passed its interim order on 26 August 2025, it drew a distinction between the two revisionists: Rs. 3,000 per month was granted to the minor daughter (revisionist no. 2), while the claim of the wife (revisionist no. 1) for interim maintenance was rejected.
Challenging this order, the revisionists moved the Allahabad High Court. Their counsel argued that Rs. 3,000 was meagre and grossly insufficient for the minor daughter's expenses. As for the wife, the argument was that she had no means of income to maintain herself and that the Family Court had wrongly treated her as self-sufficient.
The wife's counsel pointed to her earlier employment with B.S.N. Infrastructure on a contract basis in 2022. He submitted that she had worked there for only three months and then resigned under pressure from the husband. However, he acknowledged that no documentary evidence of this resignation had been placed on record.
The Competing Positions on Income and Capacity
The husband's counsel and the learned Additional Government Advocate opposed the revision with two distinct arguments on the wife's financial position.
First, a salary slip on record showed that the wife was drawing a monthly salary of Rs. 14,125. Second, and more directly, the wife had filed an affidavit in the format prescribed by the Supreme Court in Rajnesh v. Neha and Another, (2021) 2 SCC 324 — a format that requires disclosure of occupation and income. The wife had left those columns blank. The court was invited to draw an adverse inference from that omission.
On the quantum of maintenance for the minor daughter, the opposite party's counsel raised a separate factual point. The minor daughter had previously been living with the father, who was maintaining her. It was the wife who then filed a habeas corpus petition seeking the child's custody, asserting in that proceeding that she was capable of maintaining both herself and her minor daughter. The court in the habeas corpus matter accepted that assertion and directed the father to hand over custody. Counsel argued that this prior admission was binding: having obtained custody on the strength of a declared financial capacity, the wife could not now seek to have the entire financial burden placed on the father.
How the Court Reasoned
Justice Shukla accepted the submissions of the opposite party and the State. The court found that the wife had specifically claimed financial capability before another court to obtain custody of the minor daughter. The Family Court had recorded a finding to the same effect. Against that backdrop, declining to grant her interim maintenance was, in the High Court's view, a legally defensible conclusion.
On the question of enhancement for the minor daughter, the court turned to the principles set out in paragraphs 91 and 92 of Rajnesh v. Neha. Those paragraphs recognise that a child's reasonable expenses — food, clothing, residence, medical care, and education — must be adequately provided for, and that educational expenses ordinarily fall on the father. But they also provide that where the mother is working and earning sufficiently, such expenses may be shared proportionately between both parents.
Applying that framework, Justice Shukla held that the wife, having asserted her financial capacity and obtained custody on that basis, “cannot seek to fasten the entire financial burden of the minor exclusively upon the father.” The court then identified the three conditions under which a maintenance order at the interim stage might warrant revision: a substantial increase in the actual and reasonable expenses of the child, a material enhancement in the father's income, or a subsequent deterioration in the mother's financial condition. None of these had been established by cogent material on record.
The court also observed that when confronted with the opposite party's submissions, the counsel for the revisionists could not overcome them. The Family Court had considered all relevant materials and had passed a reasoned order. The High Court found no legal error or material irregularity that would justify interference in revision.
Outcome
Criminal Revision No. 6458 of 2025 was dismissed on 14 July 2026. The interim maintenance of Rs. 3,000 per month awarded to the minor daughter stands unchanged, and the rejection of the wife's claim for interim maintenance is confirmed. The underlying Maintenance Case No. 815 of 2023 before Family Court-05, Prayagraj will continue.