maintenance pendente lite
Meaning. Interim maintenance and litigation expenses paid to a spouse while a matrimonial case is pending.
Maintenance pendente lite is the support a court orders one spouse to pay to the other during the pendency of a matrimonial proceeding, along with the expenses of the case. It ensures that a spouse without independent income can live and contest the case on equal terms.
Under s.24 HMA either the husband or the wife can claim it, since the provision is gender-neutral. The application is meant to be decided quickly, ordinarily within sixty days of service of notice. It ends with the proceeding and is separate from permanent alimony under s.25.
Example
The wife, who had no income, was granted maintenance pendente lite of Rs 15,000 a month and Rs 25,000 towards litigation costs.
In Indian law
- Section 24, Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
- Section 36, Special Marriage Act, 1954
See also
maintenance · pendente lite · divorce
Read more in the study notes
- Security for keeping the peace and good behaviour; maintenance of wives, children and parents (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita)
- Maintenance, alimony and dowry prohibition (Family Law I - Hindu Law)
- Maintenance of Muslim women: personal law, the 1986 Act and section 144 BNSS (Family Law II - Mohammedan Law)