Sujata Kumari & Ors. v. Rahul Kumar & Anr. — 2026 INSC 896, decided on 20 August 2026
What the case was about
When a marriage ends, interim maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 offers a vital safety net. It is a provisional arrangement meant to preserve the status quo and protect dependants from financial hardship while the main petition is still being heard and evidence is being gathered. Among its most urgent applications is ensuring that children do not face disruption in schooling, healthcare, or daily life during the pendency of the case.
The Supreme Court recently examined the limits of a High Court’s power to disturb such interim arrangements. The case concerned two school-going daughters, aged about nine and eight. In October 2024, a Family Court directed their father, a qualified paediatrician, to pay ₹30,000 per month for each child until the maintenance petition was finally decided. The Allahabad High Court later reduced that sum to ₹15,000 per child, relying principally on the fact that the girls’ mother — a qualified gynaecologist — was herself earning a substantial salary. The appellants challenged this reduction, asking whether a father’s financial duty toward his children can be discounted merely because the mother also brings home a pay cheque.
The key facts
The marriage between the appellant-wife and the respondent-husband was solemnised in 2006. Two daughters were born during the subsistence of the marriage. After prolonged marital discord, the wife and the children left the matrimonial home. In 2022, the wife filed a petition under Section 125 CrPC seeking maintenance for herself and the two minors.
Both parents are doctors. The mother is a gynaecologist with a stated monthly income of ₹1,50,000. The father is a paediatrician who claims to earn ₹2,00,000 per month. After considering the income affidavits and the expenses presented for the children’s upbringing and education, the Family Court held that the appellant-wife was earning enough to support herself and needed no interim maintenance. However, it awarded ₹30,000 per month to each minor daughter, observing that the responsibility of raising the children lay on both parents and that the mother was presently bearing those costs alone. The husband then filed a criminal revision. In February 2026, the High Court partly allowed the petition and reduced the award to ₹15,000 per month per child, taking the view that the total burden of ₹60,000 could not be fastened solely upon the respondent-husband since the wife was gainfully employed.
The questions before the Court
The appeal presented three interlinked questions. First, was the High Court legally justified in interfering with the Family Court’s interim order solely on the ground that the appellant-wife is gainfully employed, without finding the original assessment to be perverse? Second, can a father’s liability to maintain his minor children be mechanically halved merely because the mother also earns? Third, viewed against the father’s income, the children’s needs, and the status of the parties, was the quantum of ₹30,000 per month for each daughter just and reasonable?
What the Court decided and why
Allowing the appeal, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta set aside the High Court’s order and restored the Family Court’s award of ₹30,000 per month for each of the two daughters, directing that any arrears be paid by the respondent-husband within three months (para 14).
The Supreme Court found the High Court’s reasoning unsustainable. The impugned order gave no basis for disturbing the Family Court’s findings other than the bare observation that the appellant-wife was also earning. It did not brand the Family Court’s assessment as perverse, nor did it find the aggregate sum of ₹60,000 per month to be excessive (para 9).
The Court firmly rejected the notion that a mother’s employment is, by itself, a ground to reduce the father’s maintenance liability. While both parents share the obligation to maintain their children, that duty “cannot be divided by arithmetic alone.” The daughters reside with their mother, who attends to their daily needs, schooling, and upbringing while simultaneously managing her own medical practice. The bench observed that such care cannot be measured in money, but it is a real contribution, and often the greater one (para 10).
The Family Court had correctly appreciated the status of the parties and the needs of the two minor daughters after considering the income affidavits and the expenses placed before it. The Supreme Court found the award of ₹30,000 per month to each daughter, aggregating to ₹60,000 per month by way of interim maintenance, to be just and reasonable, and unsuited to interference in the High Court’s revisional jurisdiction (para 12).
The Court also underscored that the main petition under Section 125 CrPC was still awaiting final adjudication before the Family Court. Absent perversity, a revisional court ought not to tinker with the quantum of interim maintenance determined by the Family Court. The Court directed that the main application under Section 125 CrPC shall be decided on its own merits.
Why it matters
The ruling is a significant marker in the jurisprudence of child maintenance and gender equity. It rejects what might be called a “split-the-bill” approach to parental responsibility — one that looks only at the ledger of salaries and divides the children’s expenses in half. By holding that a mother’s non-monetary care is “a real contribution, and often the greater one,” the Court has signalled that daily caregiving and breadwinning are not fungible commodities (para 10).
For working mothers, the judgment removes a potential penalty: the fear that their employment will be used as a weapon to slash the other parent’s financial duty. If courts were permitted to mechanically reduce a father’s contribution based solely on the mother’s income, the practical burden of child-rearing would still fall disproportionately on the custodial parent, while the non-custodial parent’s obligation would shrink. The decision ensures that the children’s welfare — and not a crude calculus of parental incomes — remains the paramount consideration in fixing maintenance.
At an institutional level, the decision reinforces judicial discipline in revisional proceedings. Family Courts are best placed to assess the nuanced facts of household expenditure, school fees, medical needs, and lifestyle. The Supreme Court has reminded higher courts in revision that unless a maintenance award is perverse or demonstrably excessive, they should resist the temptation to recalibrate the figure based on abstract notions of shared liability.
Ultimately, the judgment restates a simple but vital principle: children have a right to maintenance commensurate with their needs and their parents’ means. That right cannot be diluted by treating a mother’s salary as an excuse to halve the father’s share. As the Court made plain, the arithmetic of income is no substitute for the arithmetic of raising a child.