The Allahabad High Court has ruled that a moral responsibility cannot be treated as a legal duty, while dismissing a plea filed by an elderly couple seeking maintenance from their daughter-in-law after the death of their son.
The couple had moved the high court after a family court rejected their application in August last year. They told the court that they were old, uneducated and financially dependent on their son, who worked as a constable in the Uttar Pradesh Police. Their son got married in 2016 but died in 2021. His wife, the daughter-in-law in the case, is also employed as a constable.
The petitioners argued that their daughter-in-law has a stable income and had also received benefits following their son’s death. They stressed that she
had a moral duty to support them. “Emphasis was laid on the moral obligation of the daughter-in-law to maintain the aged parents-in-law, which, according to the revisionists, should be treated as a legal obligation,” the court noted.
On the other hand, the daughter-in-law’s counsel maintained that the family court had already examined the matter and no further interference was required.
The high court examined the legal provisions under Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which allows courts to direct a person to provide maintenance to dependent family members such as a spouse, children and parents. However, the court pointed out that parents-in-law are not included under this law.
“The legislature, in its wisdom, has not included parents-in-law within the ambit of the said provision. In other words, it is not the scheme of the legislature to fasten liability of maintenance upon a daughter-in-law towards her parents-in-law under the said provision,” Justice Madan Pal Singh said in his order dated February 4.
The court also observed that there was no evidence to show that the daughter-in-law had secured her government job on compassionate grounds after her husband’s death.
Making a clear distinction between ethics and law, the court said, “The concept of moral obligation, howsoever compelling it may appear, cannot be enforced as a legal obligation in the absence of a statutory mandate. Maintenance under the said provision can be claimed only by persons falling within the categories specifically enumerated therein.”
With this, the high court upheld the earlier family court decision and dismissed the couple’s plea.
