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Sujata Kumari & Ors. Vs. Rahul Kumar & Anr.

2026 INSC 896 | Supreme Court of India | Criminal Appeal arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 9661 of 2026

Coram: Vikram Nath, J. and Sandeep Mehta, J. | Decided: 20 August 2026

Citation: 2026 INSC 896

Court Below: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Criminal Revision No. 10 of 2025 (order dated 9 February 2026)

Background

  1. The appellants — the wife and two minor daughters (aged about 9 and 8) — had filed a petition under Section 125 CrPC (Case No. 355/2022) seeking maintenance of Rs. 2,50,000 per month from the respondent-husband. Both parties are doctors: the wife, an MBBS, DGO gynaecologist earning Rs. 1,50,000 per month, and the husband, an MBBS, MD paediatric consultant claiming Rs. 2,00,000 per month (with the wife alleging he in fact owns his own nursing home).

 

  1. The Family Court granted interim maintenance of Rs. 30,000 per month to each daughter (total Rs. 60,000/month) but declined interim maintenance to the wife herself, holding that a spouse in gainful employment is not entitled to interim support meant to guard against destitution. On the husband’s revision, the Allahabad High Court halved this to Rs. 15,000 per month per daughter, reasoning that the burden could not fall on the father alone given the wife’s own income.

Issue

Whether the High Court was justified in reducing the children’s interim maintenance merely on the ground that the mother was also earning.

Holding

  1. The Supreme Court restored the Family Court’s order, setting aside the High Court’s reduction. Key findings:

 

  1. The High Court gave no independent reason for interference — it did not find the Family Court’s assessment perverse, nor the sum of Rs. 60,000/month excessive; it merely halved the figure because the mother also earns.
  2. A mother’s income is not, by itself, a ground to proportionately reduce the father’s maintenance liability toward the children. The obligation is shared, but “cannot be divided by arithmetic alone.”

 

  1. The custodial parent’s day-to-day care and upbringing of the children is itself a real and often greater contribution, not reducible to a monetary offset.

 

  1. Independent of the wife’s earnings, Rs. 60,000/month for two school-going daughters is not excessive for a father earning Rs. 2,00,000/month as a qualified doctor.

 

  1. Since the main Section 125 petition remains pending before the Family Court, this was only an interim maintenance determination, warranting no interference in revision.

Result

Appeal allowed. High Court order dated 9 February 2026 set aside; Family Court order dated 21 October 2024 restored. Arrears to be paid by the husband within three months. The main Section 125 CrPC petition to be decided on its own merits, uninfluenced by these findings.

Significance

Reaffirms that in interim child-maintenance determinations, a working mother’s income does not automatically dilute the father’s obligation on a pro-rata basis. Courts must independently assess whether the awarded quantum is excessive relative to the paying parent’s means and the children’s needs, rather than mechanically apportioning the burden between earning parents.

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