Husband Concealed First Marriage; MP HC Upholds ₹5,000 Monthly Maintenance For Woman He Later Married

The petitioner challenged a Family Court order under Section 125 CrPC awarding his respondent-wife monthly maintenance of ₹5,000.

He contended that his prior marriage to Aarti was subsisting when he married the respondent, making the respondent ineligible for maintenance; he also asserted that their two children were illegitimate.

The Family Court found that the petitioner had not disclosed his first marriage to the respondent, knowingly married her, and lived with her, and it awarded her maintenance.

Section 125 CrPC is a beneficial, socially oriented provision intended to prevent vagrancy and destitution by providing a speedy remedy for maintenance.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Smt. N. Usha Rani v. Moodudula Srinivas, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 225 (also cited as 2025 INSC 129), was relied upon in considering a maintenance claim where the marriage was alleged to be void because a prior marriage subsisted.

The High Court also observed that the coordinate-bench decisions in Bhagwandas v. Panpati Shah and Rajkumar Agrawal v. Sarika did not assist the petitioner because the Supreme Court had already considered the earlier authorities on which those decisions relied.

The Family Court had found that the petitioner concealed his prior marriage, knowingly married the respondent, and cohabited with her, and that two children were born of the relationship.

Applying the social-justice purpose of Section 125 and the Supreme Court’s decision in N. Usha Rani, the High Court held that the petitioner’s reliance on the alleged invalidity of the marriage did not establish that the maintenance award was illegal.

It therefore found no illegality in the Family Court’s order.

Any pending applications were disposed of.