Can a wife lose maintenance if she has a govt house? Allahabad HC says no

The Allahabad high court has ruled that a residential house allotted to a woman under a government welfare scheme cannot be treated as a source of livelihood or used as grounds to deny her maintenance.

The court made clear that shelter and financial independence are two very different things and that a husband's legal obligation to maintain his wife cannot be wished away by pointing to a roof over her head.Dismissing a revision petition filed by the husband, Justice Garima Prashad upheld a family court order directing him to pay his wife Rs 4,000 per month from the date of filing of the maintenance application and Rs 5,000 per month from the date of the order.What was the issue?After the couple got married in December 2016, the wife alleged that she was subjected to cruelty and harassment over demands for additional dowry, and was eventually forced to leave the matrimonial home. She filed a maintenance application under Section 125 CrPC before the family court.The husband contested the claim on two grounds. First, he argued that his wife was earning through sewing and embroidery work. Second, he pointed to the fact that she had been allotted a house under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and was therefore capable of maintaining herself. He also pleaded that he was an illiterate driver earning only around Rs 5,000 per month and was now unemployed.

The family court rejected both the husband's arguments and found that the wife had a valid reason to leave her matrimonial home, and awarded her maintenance. The husband then challenged the order in Allahabad high court.What did the court say?The high court rejected both arguments and dismissed the husband's petition.On the housing allotment, the court held that a house gives a woman a place to live but does not put money in her hands, and that "allotment of a residential house under a welfare scheme cannot be treated as a source of livelihood disentitling a wife from claiming maintenance."On the sewing and embroidery claim, the court said the husband had produced no solid evidence to show his wife had a steady income of her own, holding that "mere assertions in pleadings, unsupported by satisfactory evidence, cannot be accepted as proof of financial independence."The husband's claim of unemployment was also rejected. The court said that simply saying you are unemployed or earn very little is not enough to escape the legal duty to maintain your wife. The family court had already found him to be a skilled driver and physically capable of earning and the high court saw no reason to disagree.The court also noted that it could not step in simply because a different view was possible — it could only intervene if the lower court's order was clearly illegal or deeply flawed. Finding no such problem, it dismissed the revision.