S.125 CrPC| Grandmother Can Seek Maintenance For Child Without Being Appointed Legal Guardian: MP HC

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has ruled that a minor girl’s plea for interim maintenance from her father cannot be rejected merely because it was filed through her maternal grandmother, who had not been formally appointed as her legal guardian.

Allowing a criminal revision on October 13, 2026, Justice Dwarka Dhish Bansal of the Jabalpur bench said the Family Court overlooked that “it is the minor whose rights are required to be enforced and not the next friend”.

The revision was filed by Miss Siddhi Chaurasiya against her father, Sailendra Chaurasiya, challenging a September 5, 2022 order of the First Additional Principal Judge, Family Court, Jabalpur. That court had dismissed her application for interim maintenance pendente lite in a Section 125 CrPC proceeding.

Siddhi was born on September 26, 2015. Her mother, Sapna Chourasiya, died on May 19, 2018, when the child was about three. Her counsel told the Court that the parents’ relations were strained, the father had deserted his wife, and he refused to accept the child as his own.

Since her mother’s death, the girl has lived with her maternal grandmother. As the grandmother could not adequately maintain her, a Section 125 application was filed on January 24, 2019 through her as next friend, along with a plea for interim maintenance.

The Family Court rejected that plea, reasoning that the grandmother was not a legal guardian duly appointed under law and, unless she sought legal custody, had no right to file proceedings on the child’s behalf.

Appearing for the petitioner, Advocate Avinash Dubey argued that the father had admitted she was his daughter and that she had lived with her grandmother since 2018. She was therefore entitled to interim maintenance even without following Order XXXII of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC), he submitted, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Nagaiah v. Chowdamma.

Advocate Sanjay Jharia, representing the father, defended the order, arguing that no application under Order XXXII Rule 4 CPC had been moved for appointment of a guardian.

The High Court recorded that there was “no dispute” that Siddhi is the respondent’s legitimate daughter, and that her stay with the grandmother after her mother’s death had not been denied in the father’s reply.

Justice Bansal then relied on coordinate Bench rulings of the Madras, Kerala and Punjab and Haryana High Courts, which hold that a person with sufficient interest in a minor can seek maintenance under Section 125 without strictly complying with guardianship rules.

The order extensively reproduced the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s ruling in Kamaljit Singh v. Gurkirat Kaur, which called Section 125 proceedings “summary in character and welfare-oriented in purpose”. It held that a grandmother in actual care and custody of a child acquires a “sufficient and legitimate representative capacity” to seek maintenance, and that “an irregularity in the channel through which the child’s claim is brought cannot be permitted to defeat the claim itself at the threshold”.

The Family Court had also relied on an unreported Delhi High Court decision dated April 4, 2022. Justice Bansal found that it did not deal with a plea filed on behalf of a minor by a person having sufficient interest, and was therefore “not applicable at all” to the present case.

Stressing the purpose of the law, the Court said Section 125 must be interpreted “so as to advance the social justice and to extend the benefit to the helpless persons”. The message is clear: procedural technicalities should not stand between a child and basic support.

Holding that the Family Court “committed an illegality” in dismissing the application, the High Court set aside the 2022 order and remanded the matter for a fresh decision on interim maintenance in accordance with law.

The parties must appear before the Family Court on November 16, 2026. If either side fails to appear, fresh notice or summons shall be issued.

Case Title: Miss Siddhi Chaurasiya vs. Sailendra Chaurasiya

Order Date: October 13, 2026

Bench: Justice Dwarka Dhish Bansal