S.24 Hindu Marriage Act | Interim Maintenance Order Is Interlocutory In Nature, Can Only Be Reviewed Not Appealed: Madras High Court

The bench of Justice M Sundar and Justice Govindarajan Thilakavadi however added that a revision against the order of interim maintenance is maintainable under Article 227 of the Constitution irrespective of whether it was made by a regular civil court or a Family Court.

The bench was hearing a batch of petitions during which the question for discussion arose of whether statutory appeals under Section 19 of the Family Courts Act are maintainable as against the impugned order owing to the expression “not being an interlocutory order”, in sub-section (1) of Section 19 of the Family Courts Act 1984. This question was dovetailed with another question of whether a statutory appeal under Section 28 of the Hindu Marriage Act will lie against an order of interim maintenance/pendente lite maintenance made under Section 24 of the Hindu Maintenance Act.

The court observed that the order of interim maintenance was decided based on Affidavits of Disclosure of Assets and Liabilities and not based on a full-fledged trial, where both parties were put in a box and tried. The court added that the procedure for granting interim maintenance was completely different from the permanent alimony proceedings or the proceedings where decrees of divorce, restitution of conjugal rights, etc are made.

The court further noted that though at the time when the Hindu Marriage Act came into being, the Act provided for appeal of all orders, the Law Commission, in its 59^th Report on Hindu Marriage Act, noted that appeals against interim orders lead to delay and thus proposed to limit appeals only against the decrees and orders that were permanent in nature. The Law Commission further recommended a period of limitation of 30 days for appealing against orders.

Following this, Section 28 of the Hindu Marriage Act was amended wherein it was stated that the order made by the court in any proceedings under Section 25 and Section 26 shall, subject to provisions, be appealable if they are not interim orders.

The court thus observed that the amendment was brought in to ensure that appeals lie only in respect of decrees and orders of permanent nature as appeals against interim orders, which were only for a period of time, would lead to further delay. Thus, the court underlines that the word 'all decrees' made by the court excluded an order under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act.

“In the light of the Law Commission Report, which was accepted and codified by way of new Section 28 of HM Act and kicked in on and from 27.05.1976, it would tantamount to neutralizing the very objective behind the amendment to section 28 if we were to say that orders under section 24 of HM Act which are clearly only for a period of time,” the court said.

The court also stressed that though the orders of interim maintenance were not appealable, it did not mean that the doors were completely shut and that the parties had the option of reviewing the orders under Article 227 of the Constitution.

“We are not shutting the doors for the appellants. We make it clear that a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India will be maintainable as the orders made by Family Courts under Section 24 of the HM Act cannot be left to be final without further judicial review by High Court. To be noted, we are informed that prior to FC Act and aforementioned amendment to Section 28 of HM Act, only such revisions were being filed,” the court observed.

With respect to the appeals already pending against orders of interim maintenance, the court gave liberty to the parties to seek withdrawal of the same and file revision petitions. The court added that the period spent in appeal under Section 28 of the Hindu Marriage Act or Section 19 of the Family Courts Act will stand excluded if delay was brought up.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Mad) 126

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