Aditi alias Mithi v. Jitesh Sharma

The matrimonial relationship between the appellant's mother and the respondent-father, Jitesh Sharma, deteriorated into irreconcilable hostility shortly after the birth of their minor daughter, Aditi alias Mithi. In 2014, the minor daughter, acting through her natural guardian and mother, approached the Family Court under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, seeking monthly maintenance to secure her basic sustenance, medical care, and escalating educational expenses.

The respondent-father contested the maintenance application vehemently. He raised preliminary objections grounded in pending matrimonial disputes, alleged that the custody of the child was unlawfully retained by the mother, and sought to minimize his financial status. Over the course of the next six years, the maintenance proceedings suffered chronic delays, punctuated by repeated adjournments, interlocutory motions, and the father's failure to furnish comprehensive disclosures regarding his true income and assets.

In 2020—approximately six years after the presentation of the petition—the Family Court finally adjudicated the application on the merits. The Court found that the father had sufficient means and neglected to maintain his minor daughter, fixing maintenance at ₹20,000 per month. However, despite the lapse of six years of systemic litigation delay, the Family Court directed that the maintenance amount would be payable solely from the date of the final order (2020) rather than from the date of the application (2014), thereby wiping out six full years of accrued maintenance arrears without assigning any specific justification.

Aggrieved by the arbitrary restriction, the minor child filed a Criminal Revision Petition before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. The High Court summarily dismissed the revision petition, refusing to interfere with the Family Court's exercise of discretion. Aggrieved further, the minor appellant moved the Supreme Court of India via Special Leave Petition under Article 136 of the Constitution, contending that both lower forums acted in patent violation of the binding three-Judge Bench judgment in Rajnesh v. Neha (2021) 2 SCC 324.

1. Discretionary vs. Mandatory Operation: Whether Family Courts and Magistrates possess unbridled discretion under Section 125(2) CrPC (now Section 144(2) BNSS) to award maintenance only from the date of order without recording exceptional, compelling reasons in writing.
2. Application of Rajnesh v. Neha to Minor Children: Whether the binding dictum of Rajnesh v. Neha—mandating that maintenance must operate from the date of application across all matrimonial proceedings—applies with equal or greater vigor to maintenance claims instituted by or on behalf of minor children.
3. Prejudice of Judicial Backlog: Whether procedural delays inherent in the adjudicatory mechanism can be permitted to prejudice the minor child's statutory entitlement to retrospective maintenance, thereby giving a defaulting father an unearned financial windfall.
4. Enforceability of Arrears: What parameters and recovery mechanisms must be deployed to ensure that accumulated arrears of child maintenance are liquidated in a time-bound manner without driving the custodial parent into unending cycles of execution litigation.

The Supreme Court allowed the Criminal Appeal filed by the minor daughter, Aditi alias Mithi. The Court set aside the impugned judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and modified the order of the Family Court. The Supreme Court ordered that the maintenance allowance of ₹20,000 per month awarded to the minor appellant shall be payable retrospectively from the date of the original presentation of the maintenance application in the year 2014.

The Court further directed the respondent-father to compute and liquidate the entire accumulated arrears of maintenance from 2014 to 2023 within a strict period of three months in three equated monthly installments, warning that failure to comply would invite immediate coercive recovery under Section 125(3) CrPC along with contempt of court proceedings.

The legislative drafting of Section 144(2) BNSS retained the verbatim structure of Section 125(2) CrPC. Consequently, the authoritative interpretation rendered by the Supreme Court in Aditi alias Mithi forms the indispensable jurisprudential cornerstone for interpreting Section 144 BNSS. The statutory phrase "or, if so ordered, from the date of the application" has effectively been elevated by constitutional mandate into the primary operative rule, reversing the archaic colonial presumption.

The judgment in Aditi alias Mithi v. Jitesh Sharma has become a pivotal precedent in matrimonial and child welfare jurisprudence across India:

• Reaffirmation in Neha Malhotra v. Vikram Malhotra (2024 SCC OnLine SC 412): The Supreme Court cited Aditi alias Mithi to reaffirm that arrears of maintenance for minor children cannot be compromised, reduced, or arbitrarily deferred due to protracted disputes between estranged spouses.
• Application by High Courts:
  • Delhi High Court: In multiple revisions under Section 19 of the Family Courts Act, the Delhi High Court set aside trial court orders that restricted child maintenance to prospective dates, directing immediate arrears calculation from the filing date.
  • Punjab & Haryana High Court: Corrected its earlier trajectory and strictly enforced Aditi in over a dozen revision petitions, holding that trial courts that fail to award maintenance from the date of filing commit patent jurisdictional error.
  • Bombay High Court: Held that where an interim maintenance application is filed during the pendency of a Section 125 petition, the award must relate back to the original application date to protect the child against litigation attrition.