Section 125 CrPC | MP High Court Refuses To Let Husband Escape Retrospective Maintenance To Wife, Son

The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore Bench has dismissed a husband's plea to escape paying six years of retrospective maintenance to his estranged wife and minor son, holding that prolonged pendency of litigation cannot be used to deprive a family of its rightful dues.

Justice Gajendra Singh was hearing a review petition and a connected plea filed by Ujjwal Trivedi, seeking recall of an earlier direction that required him to pay enhanced maintenance of Rs.16,000 per month with effect from 2018, the date his wife and son first approached the family court, rather than from a later date.

Ms. Sangeeta Choudhary appeared for the petitioner in both matters.

The dispute traces back to the couple's marriage in January 2013. Their son was born in 2017. In October 2018, the wife and child filed an application under Section 125 of the Cr.P.C. before the Family Court, Indore, seeking maintenance. That application took over six and a half years to reach finality. In April 2025, the family court awarded Rs.7,000 per month to the wife and Rs.3,000 per month to the son, but ordered that the amount would be payable only from the date of its own order, not from the date the application was filed.

Both sides then moved the High Court in revision. The husband's revision was dismissed. The wife and son's revision was partly allowed in April 2026, with the son's maintenance enhanced to Rs.9,000 per month, and, significantly, the court directed that both the original and enhanced amounts would be payable retrospectively from October 2018, the date the maintenance application was first filed.

Aggrieved by this retrospective effect, the husband approached the High Court once again, this time seeking a review of that very order under Section 362 of the Cr.P.C. His counsel argued that he had been paying interim maintenance regularly since 2018 and had complied with the final order as well, and that being made to pay the enhanced amount from a date nearly eight years ago would impose an enormous financial burden and amount to harassment. Reliance was placed on Section 125(2) of the Cr.P.C., now corresponding to Section 144(2) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which allows courts to direct that maintenance be paid either from the date of the order or from the date of the application.

The court was unpersuaded. It noted that the interim maintenance already paid by the husband would in any case be adjusted against the arrears, a safeguard the trial court itself had built in. It also relied on the Supreme Court's ruling in Rajnesh vs. Neha, where the Apex Court, exercising its powers under Article 142, had directed that maintenance in all cases be awarded from the date of filing of the application.

"The minor child and wife cannot be deprived of maintenance on account of the prolonged pendency of the proceedings," the court observed, adding that making the order prospective, from the date of the revision petition, would effectively punish the wife and child for delays that were not of their making. "It is not the harassment of the husband; rather, it is the wife and the minor son who would suffer the consequences of such deprivation," the court held, concluding that there was "no scope for review in the present review petition."

The court then took up the husband's separate plea filed under Section 528 of the BNSS read with Section 482 of the Cr.P.C., seeking the same relief through a different route. Calling it a repetition of the review petition, the court dismissed it in limine, observing that any grievance over modification of maintenance ought to be raised under Section 127 of the Cr.P.C. read with Section 146 of the BNSS, and only if there is a genuine change in circumstances.

With both pleas rejected, the retrospective enhancement of maintenance in favour of the wife and son finally stands undisturbed.

Case Title: Ujjwal Trivedi vs. Smt. Simpi Trivedi and Others with connected matter

Order Date: August 14, 2026

Bench: Justice Gajendra Singh