Interim maintenance under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act is meant to prevent destitution during litigation, not to duplicate an income the claimant already has. On 16 September 2026, a Division Bench of the High Court of Delhi comprising Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice Renu Bhatnagar applied that principle with arithmetic precision in Brijesh Rajkumar Suiri v. Navita Brijesh Suri, MAT.APP.(F.C.) 439/2024. The Bench upheld the Family Court's award of ₹5,000 per month to the wife but modified the date from which it runs: not from the date of her application in January 2021, but from July 2024 — the point at which her own employment came to an end.
The proceedings below
The parties married on 25 October 2015; a daughter was born the following year; and the parties separated in November 2020. The wife petitioned for divorce on the ground of cruelty and, pending it, sought interim maintenance under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act. The Family Court awarded ₹5,000 per month payable from 8 January 2021, the date of her application. The husband appealed under Section 19(1) of the Family Courts Act, contending that the wife was employed and that his own income had been assessed incorrectly.
The High Court's calibration
The Division Bench declined to disturb the quantum. What it corrected was the timeline: the record showed that the wife had remained in employment until June 2024. For the period in which she earned her own income, the rationale of Section 24 — support for a spouse who has no independent income sufficient for her maintenance — simply did not apply. The Bench accordingly directed that the ₹5,000 monthly maintenance would run from 1 July 2024, after her employment ceased, and continue until the disposal of the divorce proceedings.
Family Court
₹5,000 per month from 8 January 2021 — the date of the maintenance application.
High Court
₹5,000 per month from 1 July 2024 — the date the wife's own income ended; the employed period excluded.
The principle beneath the arithmetic
Section 24 is need-based and status-based at once: it asks whether the applicant lacks independent income sufficient for her support, and it measures support against the standard of living the marriage established. Two consequences follow. First, employment is not a disqualification in the abstract — a wife earning a fraction of the husband's income can still claim the difference needed for a comparable standard of living. Second, and conversely, the court will not order one spouse to subsidise a period during which the other was demonstrably self-sufficient. The date-of-application default exists to protect claimants from the delays of litigation; it was never meant to convert maintenance into arrears for years in which no need existed.
What each side should document
Claimants: disclose employment history candidly in the affidavit of assets and income — concealment discovered later can cost credibility, arrears and sometimes the order itself.
Claimants: where employment ended, prove when and why — relieving letters, final salary slips — so the court can fix a clean start date.
Respondents: if the claimant was earning, obtain and place the proof — appointment letters, PF or ESI records, bank statements — rather than asserting employment generally.
Both: remember that interim maintenance is provisional; the figures and findings remain open to adjustment when permanent alimony is decided.
The wider Delhi context
Delhi's Family Courts decide a heavy volume of interim maintenance applications on affidavits of assets and income, and appellate correction usually concerns either concealment or, as here, the temporal reach of the award. The judgment is a clean, current authority for a proposition advocates frequently need: the start date of interim maintenance is tied to need, and a period of self-sufficiency within the litigation can — and should — be excluded. The same logic informs maintenance analysis under Section 144 of the BNSS (the successor to Section 125 CrPC) and under the Domestic Violence Act, where the claimant's own income is always part of the equation.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice or a solicitation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a working wife disentitled to interim maintenance?
Not automatically. The test is whether she has sufficient independent income to support herself in reasonable comparability with the standard of the marriage. A wife earning enough to meet her needs will not receive interim maintenance for that period, but modest or intermittent earnings do not bar a claim; courts weigh both spouses' incomes and obligations.
From which date does interim maintenance ordinarily run?
The Supreme Court's framework in maintenance matters directs that maintenance is ordinarily awarded from the date of application. But that is the default, not a rule of thumb immune to facts: where the claimant was self-supporting for part of the intervening period, the court can carve that period out, as the Delhi High Court did here.
Does interim maintenance end when the divorce case is decided?
Yes. Orders under Section 24 HMA operate during the pendency of the matrimonial proceeding. On its conclusion they lapse, and financial rights are then governed by any order of permanent alimony under Section 25 or other statutory maintenance remedies.
Can the quantum fixed by a Family Court be disturbed in appeal?
Appellate courts interfere with quantum only where it is perverse or ignores material — the assessment is discretionary. In this case the challenge to the ₹5,000 figure failed; only the start date was corrected, because the record showed the wife had been employed until mid-2024.