The first defence in a surprising number of maintenance cases is not "I cannot pay" but "she is not my wife." Ceremony defects, prior marriages, missing photographs and unregistered weddings are pressed to argue that the applicant fails at the threshold. Maintenance law has a considered answer to this strategy: proceedings under Section 144 of the BNSS (the successor to Section 125 CrPC) are summary and preventive, and the applicant needs to establish marriage only on a prima facie standard — not with the rigour of a matrimonial trial. Understanding where that line runs decides many cases.
Why the standard is relaxed
Section 144 BNSS, like Section 125 CrPC before it, is a measure of social justice: a summary remedy to secure subsistence for wives, children and parents unable to maintain themselves. The Supreme Court held as far back as Dwarika Prasad Satpathy v. Bidyut Prava Dixit (1999) that the standard of proof of marriage in such proceedings is less exacting than in criminal or matrimonial trials, and that once the applicant shows a prima facie marriage, the respondent cannot defeat the claim by exploiting ceremony technicalities. The same approach has been reiterated since, including in Kamala v. M.R. Mohan Kumar (2018), which applied the prima facie standard and the cohabitation presumption in a Section 125 case.
What prima facie proof looks like
Ceremony and custom
Evidence of the wedding — witnesses, photographs, invitation cards, priest's testimony — or of a customary form recognised in the parties' community.
Documents
Marriage registration where it exists, but equally ration cards, Aadhaar records, bank nominations, insurance forms, school records of children naming the parties as spouses, and hospital or employment records.
Conduct and reputation
Long cohabitation, introduction of each other as husband and wife, joint participation in family functions, and the testimony of neighbours and relatives — the raw material of the presumption of marriage.
The respondent's side: what a real contest requires
A respondent who genuinely disputes marital status must do more than deny. The presumption from cohabitation places the burden of rebuttal on him; discharge requires positive material — proof of a subsisting prior marriage of the applicant, demonstrable impossibility of the alleged ceremony, or records showing the relationship was known and treated as something other than marriage. Even then, two limits operate. First, a prior marriage of the respondent is treated differently from a prior marriage of the applicant: courts have declined to let a man set up his own subsisting marriage to defeat the woman he married in fact, and the second wife's position has generated its own protective case law. Second, the children's claim is independent — legitimacy and maintenance of children do not turn on the validity of the parents' marriage, and Section 144 BNSS covers legitimate and illegitimate children alike.
Where the marriage question is finally decided
Practice notes for Delhi Family Courts
Applicants should front-load the marriage evidence in the affidavit and interim stage — the prima facie finding made at the interim maintenance stage tends to frame the rest of the case.
Respondents contesting status should seek a specific issue on marriage and lead positive evidence, while remembering that interim maintenance can still be awarded pending that contest.
Where ceremony proof is genuinely weak, applicants should consider the DV Act route in parallel: monetary relief under Section 20 is available to a woman in a relationship in the nature of marriage, on the criteria the Supreme Court has laid down for such relationships.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice or a solicitation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the applicant have to prove a valid marriage strictly?
No. The Supreme Court has long held that the standard of proof of marriage in maintenance proceedings is not as strict as in a prosecution for bigamy or a matrimonial suit. A prima facie case of marriage — ceremonies, social recognition, documents, children — suffices for the summary jurisdiction, whose object is to prevent vagrancy and destitution.
What is the presumption from cohabitation?
Where a man and woman have cohabited for a long period and been treated socially as spouses, the law presumes in favour of marriage rather than concubinage. The presumption is rebuttable, but the burden of rebutting it lies on the person who denies the marriage — a bare denial or pointing to the absence of a marriage certificate does not discharge it.
What if a civil court later decides the marriage question differently?
A considered finding of a competent civil or matrimonial court on marital status will ordinarily prevail over the summary finding in maintenance proceedings, and can ground an application to alter or cancel the order. Until then, the maintenance order stands and is enforceable.
Do defective ceremonies defeat maintenance altogether?
Not necessarily. Courts lean against allowing a respondent who lived with the applicant as her husband to invoke the defect of his own ceremony to escape liability, and separate protections exist — a woman in a relationship in the nature of marriage may claim maintenance under the Domestic Violence Act even where Section 144 BNSS is contested, and children's maintenance does not depend on the validity of the parents' marriage at all.