Maintenance is for assisting women & child in distress: Court

The object of maintenance is to prevent vagrancy and destitution and to assist the women and children in distress, a court here has said while asking a man to pay alimony to his estranged wife and two children.
Special Judge Rajneesh Kumar Gupta passed the order on an appeal filed against a trial court verdict directing the man, a Delhi resident, to pay Rs 5,000 per month as interim relief to his wife and two kids till disposal of interim application.
"The object of maintenance is to prevent vagrancy and destitution and to assist the women and children in distress.

"Keeping in view the fact that the maintenance as fixed by the trial court is only till the disposal of the interim application and it has been fixed on the basis of earlier settlement between the parties and so at this stage, I am of the opinion that there is no infirmity in the impugned order (by trial court)," the judge said, while upholding the trial court's February 25 order.
The sessions court noted that the trial court has fixed the maintenance on the basis of an earlier settlement between the parties in the Mediation Centre.
In his appeal against the trial court order, the man had claimed that he was a poor person and was earning around Rs 5,500 per month.

He claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case and the maintenance fixed by the trial court was unreasonable, as his monthly income was hardly sufficient for him.