The Allahabad High Court has cancelled interim maintenance granted to a woman whose marriage was legally declared invalid from the beginning.
Justice Rajeev Misra passed the judgment while hearing a man’s petition challenging earlier orders from Ghaziabad courts. Those orders had directed him to pay ₹10,000 per month as interim maintenance to his estranged wife. The High Court said that once the marriage is declared void, there is no valid domestic relationship, so the woman cannot claim benefits under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
Marriage declared void
The couple got married in 2015, but soon after, their relationship turned sour. The woman filed several police complaints against the man and his family. During a bail hearing in one of the cases, it was revealed that the woman was already married to someone else at the time of her second marriage. She later admitted this in court.
Following this, the man approached the Family Court in Delhi under the Hindu Marriage Act, asking to declare the marriage void. In 2021, the court ruled in his favour. The woman’s appeal in the Delhi High Court was withdrawn in 2022, making the void-marriage ruling final.
Despite this, the woman continued with her domestic violence case filed back in 2016. In 2022, the Ghaziabad trial court awarded her interim maintenance, which was upheld by the appellate court in 2023. The man then challenged both orders in the Allahabad High Court.
High court’s stand
The High Court said that once the marriage was declared void from the start, there is no legal relationship between the couple. According to the law, this means the woman cannot be considered an “aggrieved person” under the Domestic Violence Act.
The court explained that a void marriage has no legal standing — it is as if the marriage never happened. Therefore, the woman is not entitled to maintenance. The court also referred to Supreme Court judgments that confirmed this legal position. Finally, it cancelled both lower court orders and said that both parties will bear their own legal costs.
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