Summary Maintenance — BNSS Section 144
What most people assume
The summary maintenance law simply lets the financially weaker spouse claim from the stronger spouse.
What the law actually says
Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) section 144 — carrying forward the earlier CrPC section 125 — creates a summary, fast-track maintenance route for a wife, children, and parents who are unable to maintain themselves. "Wife" is defined to include a divorced woman who has not remarried.
Who this applies to
- A wife (including a divorced wife who has not remarried), legitimate or illegitimate minor children, and parents who are unable to maintain themselves
Why it exists
The provision exists to prevent vagrancy and destitution through a fast, summary process, without requiring a full civil trial — historically aimed at wives and children left without support. It sits inside criminal procedure specifically because of the urgency that mechanism was designed to provide.
Where the asymmetry is
As a summary procedural route, it names "wife" rather than "spouse." A husband seeking summary maintenance from a wife cannot invoke this specific section the way a wife can invoke it against a husband.
What this does not mean
That maintenance law across India is only ever available to women, or that a husband can never receive financial support through any legal route. Other matrimonial statutes (for example, provisions in personal law or the Hindu Marriage Act framework) can and do contain more gender-neutral maintenance powers. The specific point here is narrower: this particular summary criminal-procedure route is not drafted as a spouse-to-spouse, gender-neutral remedy — it names wife, children and parents as the eligible claimants.
Safeguards / limits
- Courts assess ability to maintain and inability to maintain oneself on the facts before ordering maintenance
- Other statutes outside this summary procedure may offer more gender-neutral maintenance powers depending on the applicable personal law and forum
Ground reality
Maintenance is one of the areas where “the law” is really several overlapping laws — this summary criminal-procedure route, plus personal-law maintenance provisions, plus whatever a divorce court orders. People often cite only this section as though it were the entire maintenance system, in both directions.
Why the reader needs to care now
If someone tells you flatly that “the law” only ever makes husbands pay, or flatly that maintenance law is entirely gender-neutral, both claims are oversimplified. Knowing which specific route is and isn’t gender-neutral is what lets you evaluate either claim.
Primary source
Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 — India Code →
LAW CHECKED · 08 SEPT 2026