Maintenance — Child Support Cannot Be Halved · 20 August 2026

Supreme Court: A Wife's Income Alone Is Not Reason to Halve a Father's Child Maintenance Liability

Supreme Court of India · 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 839

A couple, both qualified doctors, married in 2006 and had two daughters. After the marriage broke down, the wife left the matrimonial home and sought ₹2,50,000 a month in maintenance under Section 125 CrPC for herself and the children. The Family Court awarded ₹30,000 a month for each daughter, but declined interim maintenance to the wife herself, noting she earned ₹1.5 lakh a month and interim relief is meant for someone facing immediate inability to meet daily needs. On the husband's revision, the Allahabad High Court halved the children's maintenance to ₹15,000 each, reasoning that both parents share responsibility and the wife was also earning.

The Supreme Court restored the Family Court's figure of ₹30,000 per daughter. It held that the High Court had given no real reason for interfering beyond the fact that the wife also earns, and that this alone does not justify halving the father's liability — especially where the husband, also a doctor, earned ₹2,00,000 a month by his own account, and the Family Court's assessment of the daughters' needs had not been found excessive or unreasonable. The Bench observed that a mother's daily care and involvement in the children's upbringing is a real contribution in its own right, even where she is also employed, and that the obligation to maintain children "cannot be divided by arithmetic alone."

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