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1 The present petition is filed by the petitioner-mother claiming maintenance for her major daughter under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the legal issue involved is whether a major daughter is entitled for maintenance under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure ("the Cr.P.C." for short) and another issue which arises out of the present proceedings, whether a mother is competent to file proceedings claiming maintenance on behalf of her major daughter.

6 In support of the petition, I have heard Ms Sumangala Biradar and Ms. Suvarna Joshi appearing for respondent No.1. The learned Counsel for the petitioner would place reliance on the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Noor Saba Kahtoon vs. Mohd. Quasim 1997 (5) SCALE 248 and the Division Bench of this Court in Vijaykumar Jagdishrai Chawla vs. Reeta Vijaykumar Chawla, reported in III (2011) DMC 687 (DB) to support her submission that though the daughter has attained majority, as per wp-2872-17.doc 7 wp-2872-17.doc the Family Law an unmarried daughter is entitled to claim maintenance from her parents till she attains majority. The learned counsel would submit that the statutory obligation to maintain the daughter who is unmarried, though she has attained majority, would entitled the mother to claim maintenance for her daughter. 7 Per contra, the learned counsel for the respondent would submit that the wife had initially sought maintenance for her minor children which was granted by the competent court and which was subsequently modified taking into consideration need of the children. According to the learned counsel, the application claiming maintenance was filed by the mother and the daughter was not impleaded as an applicant in the said application and the mother was claiming amount towards maintenance of the daughter which is not permissible since it is for the daughter has attained majority and is conferred with several rights being major and is the competent person to invoke jurisdiction of the Court and to lead evidence to demonstrate that she is unable to maintain herself and her father has wp-2872-17.doc 8 wp-2872-17.doc neglected to maintain her. The learned counsel for the respondent would concede to the position of law that the major daughter, till she is married is entitled for maintenance but her objection is to the application preferred by the mother on behalf of daughter which did not fit into the parameters of Section 125 of Cr.P.C. She therefore submits that the order passed by the Family Court is just and proper and needs to be upheld and the present petition deserves to be dismissed.

11 Further, the Division Bench of this Court in case of Vijaykumar Jagdishrai Chawla vs. Reeta Vijaykumar Chawala reported in III (2011) DMC 687 while dealing with similar issue as to whether unmarried daughter is entitled to receive amount of of maintenance from her father or mother so long she is unable to maintain herself out of her own earnings. By referring to the provisions of Section 20 of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956 the Division Bench of this Court was pleased to hold that the father cannot be extricated from his liability to maintain his unmarried daughter who is staying with his wife and he would be bound not only to maintain his unmarried daughter but also responsible to maintain until her marriage while dealing with the objection of the respondent as to whether a wife can seek relief of wp-2872-17.doc 13 wp-2872-17.doc maintenance on behalf of her major daughter, the Division Bench held that the unmarried daughter is entitled to receive maintenance from her father and the mother is competent to pursue relief of maintenance for the daughters even if they have become major if the daughters are staying with her and if she was taking responsibility of their maintenance and education. At this stage, it is also relevant to refer to the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Jagdish Jugtawat Vs. Manju Lata and ors reported in (2002) 5 SCC 422, where the Apex Court held as follows :-

wp-2872-17.doc 15 wp-2872-17.doc As per section 126 of the Cr.P.C., the evidence is required to be tendered and is to be recorded in the manner prescribed for summons cases and it then contemplates followance of the procedure prescribed in Chapter XX of the Cr.P.C. The party who claim maintenance is duty bound to tender proof about neglect or refusal to maintain and also the factum that the person claiming maintenance is unable to maintain herself. Undisputedly, it is the person claiming maintenance would be required to discharge the burden of proving such neglect or refusal. The learned counsel for the respondent had vehemently argued that on attaining majority the daughter can herself file proceeding and would step into the witness box to discharge the said burden and the mother is not competent to do so on behalf of the daughter. The said argument appears to be misconceived as in the present case the mother who moved an interim application claiming maintenance has prayed that an amount of Rs.15000/- per month be granted to her as an interim maintenance so as to enable her to meet the expenses of the daughter's education. She has made it clear in the application that wp-2872-17.doc 16 wp-2872-17.doc her income is insufficient to meet her personal medical and other expenses as well as the daughter's expenses and she has approached the Court seeking maintenance for herself so that she can arrange for daughter's higher education and repaying loans. Once the learned counsel for the respondent has conceded to the position of law that major unmarried daughter is entitled to claim maintenance from the father, then, hyper technical objection that it is she, who should enter the witness box and discharge the burden of proving neglect or refusal to maintain and to prove her dependency is to be discharged by her cannot be sustained. Even if the daughter would have filed the proceedings, the parameters for deciding her entitlement would have been the neglect and refusal of the father to pay for the educational expenses and other expenses of the daughter. The daughter can be a competent person to file her own application claiming maintenance. However, in order to avoid multiplicity of the proceeding, no fault can be found in the application preferred by the mother claiming maintenance with a view to meet the expenses of the daughter, since wife has not claimed maintenance for herself and she has not denied wp-2872-17.doc 17 wp-2872-17.doc the factum of her employment. In such circumstances, it appears that the stand taken by the respondent is a hyper technical plea and the respondent cannot be absolved of his liability to meet the necessary expenses of his major unmarried daughter who is persuading her education and she needs cannot be met by the petitioner wife who has her limited source of earning. Once this principle is clear, then, the technical objection cannot come in the way of granting substantive relief in favour of the petitioner to claim an amount of maintenance for meeting the expenses of her daughter's education.