Timing of husband’s death doesn’t deny the right of maintenance: Supreme Court backs widow’s claim on income from father-in-laws’ property

On January 13, 2026, the Supreme Court of India ruled that a wife who becomes a widow after the passing of her father-in-law can seek maintenance from her father- in-law's estate according to the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956.

This judgement was made in the context of a legal dispute among the legal heirs of the Late Dr. Prasad who passed away on December 27, 2021. Dr. Prasad had three sons, one of whom died on March 2, 2023. However, Smt Geeta Sharma, his daughter-in-law and widow of one of his son late Mr Ranjit Sharma, claimed maintenance payment from Dr. Prasad’s estate following the death of her husband.

However, a separate appeal was lodged by a third party, Smt. Uma Devi, who claimed to have been in a live-in relationship with him over the last 40 years, arguing that Smt Geeta Sharma had no legal claim to maintenance from the estate of late Dr. Prasad. The Supreme Court did not decide or make any comments on Uma Devi’s rights to maintenance or inheritance.


Also read: Even with inherited property and bank balance, wife entitled to maintenance in this case: Delhi HC

Summary of the judgement

Divi Dutta, Partner at Khaitan & Co, said to ET Wealth Online: The dispute in the present case arises inter se between the heirs and family members of late Dr. Mahendra Prasad, who died in 2021.

Dr. Mahendra Prasad had three sons, namely Ranjit Sharma, Devinder Rai and Rajeev Sharma. Out of the three sons, one son, Devinder Rai predeceased his father and was survived by his wife, Smt. Kanchana Rai, who is the appellant before the Supreme Court. Ranjit Sharma, another son of the deceased, was alive on the date of death of Dr. Mahendra Prasad but subsequently died in 2023. The respondent, Smt. Geeta Sharma, is the wife of Ranjit Sharma.

Dutta says that it is alleged that Dr. Mahendra Prasad executed a registered will by which he appointed the appellant Smt. Kanchana Rai as the executor and bequeathed his properties entirely in favour of her two sons, thereby excluding his own two sons, Ranjit Sharma and Rajeev Sharma.

After the death of her husband, Ranjit Sharma, the respondent, Smt. Geeta Sharma filed a petition before the family court seeking maintenance from the estate of her deceased father-in-law under the provisions of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 (“Act”).

The Family Court dismissed the petition as not maintainable, holding that Smt. Geeta Sharma was not a widow on the date of death of Dr. Mahendra Prasad and therefore did not qualify as a “dependant” under the Act.

Dutta says that in appeal, the High Court reversed this finding and held that Smt. Geeta Sharma, being the widow of one of the sons of the deceased, was a dependant within the meaning of the Act and that her petition was maintainable.

The High Court accordingly directed the Family Court to decide the claim on merits, including the quantum of maintenance. Aggrieved by the finding on maintainability, the appellant Smt. Kanchana Rai approached the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court also quoted Hindu law Manu Smriti vide Chapter 8, verse

389, which says : “No mother, no father, no wife, and no son deserves to be forsaken. A person who abandons these blameless (relatives) should be fined six hundred (units) by the king.”

The Supreme Court said: “This verse emphasizes duty of the family head to support female family members.”

The Supreme Court also said that a son or the legal heirs are bound to maintain all the dependants (Smt Geeta Sharma in this case) out of the inherited estate, that is all persons whom the deceased (late Dr. Prasad in this case) was legally and morally bound to maintain.

The Supreme Court said: “Therefore, on the death of a son, it is the pious obligation of the father-in-law (late Dr. Prasad) to maintain a widowed daughter-in-law, if she is unable to maintain herself either on her own or through the property left behind by the deceased son.”

Issue before the Supreme Court

According to Dutta, the central issue before the Supreme Court was whether a daughter-in-law who becomes a widow after the death of her father-in-law can be regarded as a “dependant” under the Act, and consequently, whether she is entitled to claim maintenance from the estate of her deceased father-in-law.

The Supreme Court Court emphasised that the issue was purely legal and was to be decided on a plain interpretation of the provisions of the Act.

Also read: No maintenance for wife who had a 10-year long live-in relationship with a married man; Allahabad High Court rules

Conclusion of the Supreme Court

According to Dutta, the Supreme Court concluded that “any widow of the son” of a deceased Hindu is a dependant within the meaning of Section 21(vii) of the Act, irrespective of whether she became a widow before or after the death of the father-in-law. Smt. Geeta Sharma was therefore held entitled to maintain her claim for maintenance under Section 22 of the Act.

Dutta says that the Supreme Court found that the Family Court erred in introducing a temporal restriction which the legislature had consciously not enacted. The Court held that the High Court had committed no illegality in holding the maintenance petition to be maintainable and in directing the Family Court to decide the matter on merits. Consequently, the appeals were dismissed with no order as to costs.

Dutta says that Smt. Geeta Sharma won because the Court applied a strict literal interpretation of the statute, refused to add words to the provision, and held that once she satisfied the statutory description of being a “widow of the son” and was unable to maintain herself, her entitlement to claim maintenance from the estate followed as a matter of right under Section 22 of the Act.

Dutta says: "The Court further held that any contrary interpretation would be constitutionally impermissible, being arbitrary under Article 14 of the Constitution and violative of the right to live with dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution."

On these grounds, the High Court’s decision was upheld, the appeals were dismissed, and the matter was rightly remitted for determination of maintenance on merits.

Supreme Court full analysis and discussion

Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice S.V.N. Bhatti of the Supreme Court of India in their reportable judgement (2026 INSC 54) dated January 13, 2026 said that in these facts and circumstances, a short and simple question, which has been made intricate by legal engineering of the legal minds, arising in these appeals is:

“whether a daughter-in-law, who becomes a widow after the death of her father-in-law, is a dependant upon the estate of the father-in-law, and entitled to claim maintenance from his estate.”

The Supreme Court said that since the issue which is falling for our consideration is purely legal in nature, they intend to proceed and decide it on our own thinking and reasoning on the simple interpretation of the provisions of the Act, independent of the view taken by either of the courts below i.e. the Family Court and the High Court or on the basis of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, which is completely alien for the purposes of any interpretation of the provisions of the present Act.

The law on the grant of maintenance of Hindus has been codified by enacting the Hindu Adoptions & Maintenance Act, 1956. The aforesaid Act provides for the adoption as well for the maintenance. The adoption part is dealt under Chapter II of the Act, whereas Chapter III of the Act provides for maintenance to the dependents of a Hindu under Sections 18 to 28.

The “dependants” have been defined under Section 21 of the Act inter alia to include the following relatives of the deceased.

“… 2 (vii). any widow of his son or of a son of his predeceased son, so long as she does not remarry: provided and to the extent that she is unable to obtain maintenance from her husband’s estate. or from her son or daughter, if any, or his or her estate; or in the case of a grandson’s widow, also from her father-in-law's estate."

Also read: No maintenance for wife earning Rs 36,000 per month with 'no other liabilities', husband has old parents to look after; Allahabad HC ruling

Supreme Court says that lawmakers deliberately avoided to use the word “predeceased” before the “son” so as to include any widow of the son

The Supreme Court said that a plain reading of the above definition of the dependants makes it crystal clear that the relatives of the deceased, namely, “any widow of his son” would be a dependant provided she is unable to maintain herself from her husband’s estate or from her son or her daughter’s estate and in the case of grandson’s widow, from her father-in-law’s estate.

The Supreme Court said that Section 22 of the Act provides for the maintenance of dependants and casts an obligation upon all the heirs of the deceased Hindu to maintain the dependants of the deceased out of the estate inherited by them from the deceased.

The Supreme Court said: “In simpler words, all the heirs of the deceased Hindu are obliged to maintain the dependants of the deceased from the funds inherited out of the estate of the deceased.”

The Supreme Court said that sub-section (2) of Section 22 further provides that where a dependant of the deceased Hindu has not obtained share in the estate of the Hindu either by testamentary or intestate succession, such a dependant shall be entitled to maintenance from those who take the estate.

The Supreme Court said: “Therefore, anyone succeeding to the estate of the deceased Hindu is under an obligation to maintain the dependant of the deceased.”

The Supreme Court said that Section 23 of the Act provides for the manner and the factors on the basis of which maintenance to a dependant has to be determined.

Section 21 of the Act, as stated earlier, is only a defining section which defines the “dependants” of the deceased Hindu. One of the relatives of the deceased Hindu who has been defined as a dependant is clearly “any widow of his son” meaning thereby a widow of the deceased son of the Hindu is a dependant irrespective of the time she becomes a widow.

The Supreme Court said that the above definition is quite clear and unambiguous. It is not open for any other meaning except that a “widow of the son” of the deceased is a dependant.

The Supreme Court said: “In view of such a clear definition, it is not open for anyone to infer and assign any other meaning to the said definition so as to say that only a widow of the predeceased son of a Hindu would be covered by the said definition. The aforesaid definition nowhere uses the word “widow of a predeceased son”. It simply uses the words “any widow of a son”.”

The Supreme Court said that the legislature in its wisdom has deliberately avoided to use the word “predeceased” before the “son” so as to include any widow of the son.

The Supreme Court said: “The time of her becoming a widow or the death of the son is immaterial.”

The Supreme Court said that it is a cardinal principle of interpretation of law that where the provision is clear and unambiguous, it has to be interpreted literally provided the literal interpretation is not in conflict with the purpose of the Act or is otherwise not impractical.

Case law cited:

• Crawford v. Spooner (1846) 4 Moo IA 179
• B. Premanand v. Mohan Koikal (2011) 4 SCC 266
• Vinod Kumar v. DM, Mau (2023) 19 SCC 126

The Supreme Court said that in view of the language so used in Section 21 (vii) of the Act and guided by the settled principles reiterated above, there is hardly any scope to interpret that the words “any widow of his son” used therein would mean “widow of his predeceased son” only. The courts cannot add or subtract any word from the text of the statute.

The Supreme Court said: “The provisions of the statute cannot be re-written by the courts by assuming or inferring something which is not implicit from the plain language of the statute.”

Article 14 could be violated if such restrictions on maintenance is imposed

The Supreme Court said that even otherwise, any such restrictive interpretation would fail the test of constitutional validity under Article 14 of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court said that the classification sought to be made between widowed daughters-in-law based solely on the timing of the husband’s death, namely,

(a) those whose husbands died during the lifetime of the father-in-law, and

(b) those whose husbands died after him; is manifestly unreasonable and arbitrary.”

The Supreme Court said: “Such a classification bears no rational nexus with the object and purpose of the Act, which is to secure maintenance to dependants who are unable to maintain themselves.”

The Supreme Court said that in both situations (a&b), the women are similarly situated insofar as the object of the Act is concerned, having suffered widowhood, being without spousal support, and facing comparable financial vulnerability.

The Supreme Court said: “Denial of maintenance to one category based on a fortuitous circumstance beyond their control is manifestly arbitrary and violative of the guarantee of equality before law under Article 14 of the Constitution.”

Article 21 could also be violated if such restrictions continues

The Supreme Court said that any interpretation contrary to one opined above, would also infringe upon Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life with dignity.

The Supreme Court said: “The right to life has been judicially expanded to include the right to livelihood and basic sustenance.”

The Supreme Court also said that denying maintenance to a widowed daughter-in-law from the estate of her deceased father-inlaw on a narrow or technical construction of the statute would expose her to destitution and social marginalization, thereby offending her fundamental right to live with dignity.”

The Supreme Court said: “The provisions of the Act must, therefore, be read purposively and in conformity with constitutional values, so as to advance social justice and protect the dignity of vulnerable dependants rather than defeat it.”

Supreme Court quotes Hindu law

Section 4 of the Act has an overriding effect but it does not erase away fundamental principles of Hindu law particularly where some doubt is raised about the codified provisions.

Source: Supreme Court judgement

The Supreme Court said: “A son or the legal heirs are bound to maintain all the dependant persons out of estate inherited i.e. all persons whom the deceased was legally and morally bound to maintain. Therefore, on the death of son, it is the pious obligation of the father-in-law to maintain widowed daughter-in-law, if she is unable to maintain herself either on her own or through the property left behind by the deceased son.”

The Supreme Court said that the Act does not envisage to rule out the above obligation of the father-in-law to maintain his widowed daughter-in-law, irrespective of the fact when she became a widow whether prior or after his death.

Supreme Court refers to Section 19 which is also a ground for her win

The Supreme Court said that though, it may not be very much in context to refer to Section 19 of the Act but we consider it proper to refer to it as the Courts below have considered and dealt with it and some arguments on its basis have been advanced before us.

Section 19 of the Act provides for the maintenance of “widowed daughter-in-law” of the deceased Hindu. It simply contemplates that a Hindu wife is entitled to be maintained after the death of her husband by her father-in-law.

The Supreme Court said: “Thus, it casts an obligation upon the father-in-law to maintain his daughter-in-law. The said obligation subsists only during the lifetime of the father-in-law as the aforesaid provision nowhere contemplates that the daughter-in-law would be entitled to maintenance from the estate of the father-in-law.”

The Supreme Court explained that in other words, Section 19 contemplates for the maintenance of the daughter-in-law during the lifetime of father-in-law, whereas, Section 22 contemplates “maintenance of dependants” including “widowed daughterin-law” from the estate of her father-in-law meaning thereby that a claim under Section 22 can be raised only after the death of the father-in-law.

Supreme Court judgement

The Supreme Court said:

• In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances, we are clearly of the opinion that “any widow of the son” of a deceased Hindu is a dependant within the meaning of Section 21 (vii) of the Act and is entitled to claim maintenance under Section 22 of the Act.
• Therefore, no illegality has been committed by the High Court in passing the impugned order holding the petition of Respondent no.1 (Smt Geeta Sharma), who is a widow of the son of the deceased, to be maintainable and in directing the Family Court to consider it on merits in accordance with law.
• The appeals as such lack merits and are dismissed with no order as to costs.