A technical objection cannot defeat a child’s claim: under Section 125 CrPC, a maternal grandmother who has the child in her care can seek maintenance for her, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has ruled, even though she was never appointed guardian.
Jabalpur: Sending a minor girl’s plea for interim maintenance from her father back for a fresh decision, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside a Family Court order that dismissed it only because it was filed through her maternal grandmother, who had not been appointed her legal guardian [Minor Child, through Next Friend and Maternal Grandmother v. Father].
Justice Dwarka Dhish Bansal partly allowed the criminal revision on October 13, 2026. The parties have been told to appear before the Family Court on November 16, 2026. The names of the child and the family are withheld because the claimant is a minor.
Whose rights are in issue
The Court recorded that there was no dispute that the petitioner is the respondent’s legitimate daughter and that she is in the care and custody of her maternal grandmother. It then surveyed how the Madras, Kerala and Punjab and Haryana High Courts have treated such pleas, and noted the principle that a person with sufficient interest in the minor can seek maintenance on her behalf. The Court said:
“it is the minor whose rights are required to be enforced and not the next friend i.e. maternal grandmother.”
The order draws on the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s ruling in Kamaljit Singh v. Gurkirat Kaur, which describes proceedings under Section 125 as “summary in character and welfare-oriented in purpose” and holds that a grandmother who actually has the child’s care acquires a “sufficient and legitimate representative capacity” for such proceedings. The same ruling says that an irregularity in the channel through which a child’s claim is brought “cannot be permitted to defeat the claim itself at the threshold”.
The Family Court had relied on an unreported Delhi High Court decision of April 4, 2022. Justice Bansal found that the decision had not dealt with the requirement of law in a plea filed for a minor by a person with sufficient interest, and held it to be “not applicable at all” to the case. The provision, the Court added, must be read so as to advance social justice and extend its benefit to helpless persons.
The remand
Holding that the Family Court had erred, the Court said:
“the Family Court has committed an illegality in dismissing the application for interim maintenance pendente lite”
The matter goes back to the Family Court to decide the interim maintenance application afresh, with both parties directed to remain present on November 16, 2026. The revision was partly allowed and disposed of. No amount of maintenance has been fixed by the High Court, and the father’s liability, if any, remains to be decided by the Family Court.
From the mother’s death to the revision
The child’s mother died in May 2018. Since then she has lived with her maternal grandmother, who, the petition said, was not in a position to maintain her properly. On January 24, 2019, an application under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was filed on her behalf through the grandmother as next friend, along with a plea for interim maintenance. The petitioner’s case was that the father had deserted the family and did not accept the child; those are the petitioner’s assertions as recorded in the order.
On September 5, 2022, the First Additional Principal Judge, Family Court, Jabalpur, rejected the interim maintenance plea on the ground that the grandmother was not a legal guardian duly appointed under the law. The child went to the High Court in revision.
The arguments
Appearing for the child, Advocate Avinash Dubey argued that the father had admitted she is his daughter and that Order XXXII of the Code of Civil Procedure, which governs suits by minors, was no bar. He relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Nagaiah v. Chowdamma. Advocate Sanjay Jharia defended the Family Court order for the father, submitting that no application for appointment of a guardian under Order XXXII Rule 4 CPC had been filed.
What the ruling means for children raised by relatives
Children raised by relatives after a parent’s death or desertion often have no formally appointed guardian, and a guardianship petition can take years. By treating the child as the real claimant and the grandmother as only the channel, the ruling stops a technical objection from leaving such a child without interim support while the main claim is pending.
It also fits the welfare-oriented reading of Section 125 that courts have applied for decades: the provision is meant to prevent destitution, and procedural form should not defeat it. The ruling does not decide whether the father must pay or how much, which is left to the Family Court.
Case Title: Minor Child through Next Friend and Maternal Grandmother v. Father [Criminal Revision No. 4086 of 2022]
Bench: Justice Dwarka Dhish Bansal, Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur
Date of Order: October 13, 2026
Appearances: Advocate Avinash Dubey for the petitioner; Advocate Sanjay Jharia for the respondent