CHANDI SAMUVAL Vs. SAIMON SAMUVAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "Wisdom belongs to the aged and understanding to the old [Job 12:12].

(2.) An octogenarian Christian failed before the Family Court, Malappuram against his children for arrears of maintenance on the ground that no law prescribes a Christian would be entitled to past maintenance. We thought the family court was right as there were no statutory provisions prescribing the same, but we probed many law and principles to understand the claim for maintenance. Is it a requirement that to claim maintenance there should be a positive law? We find the reasons recorded hereafter that, to claim past maintenance positive law is not a prerequisite.

(3.) The parties are Christians by faith. There is no statutory provision that prescribes the duty of the children to pay maintenance to the father in his old age as per the statutory law. Even under the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872, the grant of maintenance to the wife and children is silent. Karnataka High Court noting the silence in the above statutory provisions had taken the view that the court will have to strive to redress the grievances by adopting the principles of equity natural justice and good conscience (see the views of the Karnataka High Court in K. Kumar v. Leena [(2010) 0 AIR (Kar) 75].