- Moral obligation cannot be enforced as a legal obligation, ruled Allahabad High Court
- Elderly couple sought maintenance from daughter-in-law after son's death
- Daughter-in-law is a police constable and inherited benefits after her husband's death, the couple said
Moral obligation, however compelling it may appear, cannot be enforced as a legal obligation, the Allahabad High Court has said, dismissing an elderly couple's petition for maintenance from their daughter-in-law after their son's death.
The elderly couple had approached the high court after a family court rejected their petition in August last year. Their counsel argued that the petitioners are old and illiterate, and that they were dependent on their son, a constable with Uttar Pradesh police. Their son married in 2016 and died in 2021. His wife is also a constable in Uttar Pradesh police.
The couple argued that their daughter-in-law has sufficient independent income and has also received service benefits after their son's death. "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 said in its order.
The daughter-in-law's counsel said the family court had decided the matter and no intervention was required.
The court said the elderly couple sought relief under Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and noted that parents-in-law do not come under the ambit of the law. Section 144 empowers courts to issue orders to an individual, directing him to pay maintenance to his dependent wife, child, and parents.
"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 ruling, dated February 4.
The court said there is nothing on record to indicate that the daughter-in-law got the government job on compassionate grounds. "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," the court said, upholding the family court order and dismissing the elderly couple's petition.
