Girl entitled to maintenance in child marriage case: Court

Source: Times of India dated 10.10.2019

--Swati Deshpande
The Mumbai family court recently held that a child married off when she was less than 15 years old and who sought to declare her marriage a nullity after she turned 18 was entitled to interim maintenance.

The family court said merely because she wants her marriage declared null and void, her claim of interim maintenance cannot be discarded. As she has no independent source of income, she is entitled to interim maintenance.

Her lawyer Anagha Nimbkar invoked the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act which stipulates that child marriage is voidable at the option of the party who is a minor at the time of marriage. Such a petition to declare the marriage void and a nullity needs to be filed within two years of the child turning a major.

Married when she was 14 years and 10 months old, the girl, on turning 18, filed a plea to get the marriage declared void as there was “no free consent”. She also sought a monthly maintenance as she said she wanted to resume studies which she had to forgo in the seventh standard since she was married “forcefully.’’ She had approached the court in 2017 when she turned a major. He husband was 35 years old then. She complained of harassment after marriage. In January 2014, she had left her matrimonial home and returned to her parents’ house.

Her case was also that she was doing a temporary job which she lost and was finding it difficult to support herself and sought Rs 20,000 as interim support per month.

The husband did not file any reply and the family court proceeded against him without his say, though he was given an opportunity to file one.

Going by the petition that the husband was able bodied and earning, his non-disclosure of income or source did not come in the way of the court’s order to grant her Rs 8,000 interim maintenance per month till her main petition was decided.