Unless she is disqualified for reasons like remarriage , the Allahabad High Court has observed that a divorced Muslim woman is eligible to seek maintenance under Section 125 CrPC even for the time after iddat and for the rest of her life.
The court set aside the order of the family court while deciding. The family court had dismissed the maintenance plea under Section 125 CrPC of one Shakila Khatun. The family court had held that a divorced Muslim woman is not entitled to maintenance.
The honourable High Court cited the Supreme Court’s decisions in the cases of Shamim Bano v. Asraf Khan (2014) 12 SCC 636, Shamima Farooqui v. Shahid Khan, Shabana Bano v. Imran Khan (2010) 1 SCC, and Danial Latifi v. Union of India a 2001 Law Suit(SC) 1293. In AIR 2015 SC 2025, it was decided that a divorced woman’s Section 125 CrPC petition before the Family Court would be maintainable so long as the woman did not remarry and that the amount of maintenance to be given under Section 125 of the Cr.P.C. could not be limited to the iddat period alone.
The revisionist’s had Nikah with the opposite party No. 2 occurred in the year 2006, but her spouse filed for divorce from her in August 2009. The revisionist, who did not remarry, and her young children filed a lawsuit under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.) against the opposing party No. 2, requesting maintenance.
The Court accepted her revision request and overturned the Family Court’s order after considering the factsand the circumstances of the case,and established legal precedent. The Court also sent the case back to the relevant court so that it might decide the revisionist’s claim under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code and issue a new order.
