Maintenance enhancement must account for inflation; old age does not absolve spousal support obligations.

The respondent-wife was awarded monthly maintenance of Rs.1,500 under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (“CrPC”) by order dated 19.07.2010.

In 2019, she applied under Section 127 CrPC for enhancement of maintenance.

By order dated 03.07.2025, the Additional Principal Judge, Family Court, Sarkaghat, enhanced the maintenance to Rs.3,500 per month.

The husband challenged the enhancement, contending that he was 78 years old, received only Rs.2,000 as old-age/social pension, and had to support his two unemployed sons.

The wife received Rs.1,500 as social pension, had no land or independent source of income, and asserted that the husband owned vehicles and had access to property through his sons from a second marriage.

Whether the Family Court was justified under Section 127 CrPC in enhancing the wife’s monthly maintenance from Rs.1,500 to Rs.3,500 after approximately fifteen years?

Whether the husband’s age, social-pension income, and alleged responsibility for his unemployed sons rendered the enhanced amount excessive or unreasonable?

The Court applied Section 127 CrPC, which permits alteration or enhancement of maintenance when there is a change in the circumstances of the person receiving or paying maintenance.

The Court also proceeded on the principle underlying maintenance proceedings under Section 125 CrPC that a legally wedded wife unable to maintain herself is entitled to reasonable financial support from her husband.

In determining reasonableness, the Court considered the wife’s lack of independent means, the parties’ social-pension income, the husband’s apparent financial resources, the passage of time, and inflation.

The Court further held that advanced age by itself does not absolve a husband of his continuing obligation to maintain his wife.

The Court found that the original maintenance of Rs.1,500 had been fixed in 2010 and that the wife sought enhancement in 2019, which was adjudicated in 2025.

Against this fifteen-year interval, an increase of only Rs.2,000 was not excessive, particularly in view of inflation.

Although the husband claimed to have no income apart from his social pension, the record showed land entries in the names of his sons from the second marriage, while no land stood in the wife’s name.

The wife had also testified that the husband owned three or four vehicles and employed drivers, and the husband did not specifically challenge that testimony in further cross-examination; the Court treated this as impliedly supporting her assertion of his resources.

The Court held that the husband’s old age did not extinguish his duty to maintain his wife and that Rs.3,500 per month could not be regarded as exorbitant, especially when the wife’s total support, including her Rs.1,500 social pension, remained inadequate for her upkeep.

The husband’s revision petition was therefore dismissed, and the impugned order dated 03.07.2025 was affirmed.

Any pending miscellaneous application was also disposed of.