Maintenance — Section 125(4) CrPC · 5 September 2026
X v. Z: Wife Who Left to Care for COVID-Affected Parents and Did Not Return Denied Maintenance Under Section 125(4) CrPC
High Court of Karnataka · 2026 LiveLaw (Kar) 331; RPFC No. 133/2024
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The parties had been married since 1995 and lived together for more than 25 years without major disturbance. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the wife left the matrimonial home to look after her parents and sister, who had contracted the virus, and her father, who had also suffered a heart attack. She did not return despite the husband's repeated requests; when he went to her parents' house to bring her back, she filed a police complaint against him. She, along with the couple's two daughters, then sought maintenance from the Family Court, which granted maintenance only for the younger daughter and rejected the claims of the wife and the elder daughter. The wife challenged the rejection of her own claim before the High Court.
The Karnataka High Court dismissed her revision petition. It held that while leaving temporarily during a genuine family emergency was understandable, her continued refusal to return to the matrimonial home thereafter, without any reasonable cause shown, meant she had withdrawn from her husband's society without justification — squarely attracting the bar under Section 125(4) CrPC, which disentitles a wife from maintenance where she refuses to live with her husband without sufficient reason.
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