The High Court has confirmed that a widowed daughter-in-law is entitled to claim maintenance from her father-in-law. This decision came from a division bench consisting of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Donadi Ramesh, who reviewed an appeal filed by Shree Rajpati. He contested a family court’s order that required him to pay ₹3,000 per month to his daughter-in-law, Bhuri Devi, as maintenance.
The court recognized the social realities that many widowed women, for various reasons, may choose to live with their parents after the death of their husbands. The judges ruled that just because a woman opts to live with her parents does not mean she has voluntarily left her marital home without good reason, nor does it imply she is financially self-sufficient.
Bhuri Devi’s husband, who worked as a daily laborer in the state irrigation department, was murdered in 1999. Bhuri Devi, with no other source of income and having never remarried, asked for maintenance from her father-in-law, arguing that her husband would have had rights to the family’s agricultural property if he were still alive.
The father-in-law, Rajpati, claimed that Bhuri Devi had remarried and worked as a cook in a college, but he failed to provide any proof. The court also upheld the family court’s ruling, stating that the certificate from the college principal, which allegedly showed her employment, did not include information about her income, making it insufficient as evidence.
While the court acknowledged that the father-in-law is now 70 years old and financially dependent on his sons, it reduced the monthly maintenance to ₹1,000. This ruling partially allowed his appeal, modifying the original amount decided by the family court. The court’s final decision was issued on August 31.
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