Interim Maintenance Under Section 24: What to Ask

Your divorce petition is filed, the first effective hearing is weeks away, and the savings that must fund both the household and the lawyer are draining. An application for interim maintenance under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 is the immediate remedy, and it is filed inside the same petition. But the figure you get depends less on sympathy than on what you claim, what you disclose and what you can document. Section 24 is a temporary money order. It keeps the litigation alive and the applicant solvent till the petition is decided. It is not the final alimony.

What Section 24 Covers and What It Does Not

The section applies where, in any proceeding under the Act, it appears to the court that the wife or the husband has no independent income sufficient for support and to meet the necessary expenses of the proceeding. On application, the court may order the respondent to pay two things: the expenses of the proceeding, and a monthly sum during the proceeding, fixed having regard to the applicant's own income and the income of the respondent. The full text sits in the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 on India Code.

Read the trigger carefully. It is not "she earns nothing". It is "no independent income sufficient". A wife drawing ₹22,000 a month against rent of ₹30,000 and school fees of ₹9,000 can still qualify, because sufficiency is measured against the standard of living of the marriage and the cost of fighting the case. The section is gender-neutral on its face, though in practice most applications are by wives.

Section 24 also carries a proviso directing that the application be disposed of, as far as possible, within sixty days from the date of service of notice on the respondent. Keep that date in your diary; it is the only clock the statute gives you.

Two heads, two separate prayers

Most applications leave money on the table here. They ask for "maintenance" and forget costs. Litigation expenses are a distinct head under Section 24: court fee, advocate's fee and retainer, drafting and typing, certified copies, travel to court for each hearing, and the cost of the evidence you will eventually need. Claim a lump sum plus a per-hearing figure. An order that covers the household but not the lawyer forces you to borrow to run the case.

What Section 24 does not do

It does not divide property, it does not provide for the child, and it does not fix permanent alimony. Child maintenance is sought separately, ordinarily under Section 26 of the Act. Final alimony is decided under Section 25, which weighs the parties' income and other property, conduct, and the number of dependants. Parallel remedies exist outside the Act: Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (the old Section 125 CrPC), and Section 20 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 for monetary relief. Courts adjust overlapping amounts so that you do not recover twice for the same need.

Drafting the Application: Income, Needs, Litigation Costs

File it as an interlocutory application in the pending petition, supported by an affidavit. There is no single prescribed central form under the Act, so your counsel will follow local rules and the practice of that court. What does not vary is the substance the court expects, and it follows a fixed order.

1. The parties, the petition number, the date of filing and the date of service.

2. A statement that the applicant has no independent income sufficient for support and for the expenses of the proceeding, with actual figures.

3. The applicant's own income, assets and liabilities, disclosed fully: salary, rent received, fixed deposits, jewellery, a car, a flat in her name, and any loan she services.

4. The respondent's income, with the source of her knowledge stated precisely. A salary slip from a shared email account, an earlier jointly filed return, a property tax receipt, a loan sanction letter.

5. An itemised monthly requirement: rent, electricity, groceries, school fees, medical costs, transport, insurance premia, household help.

6. An itemised litigation cost: court fee paid, advocate's retainer, per-hearing fee, travel, photocopying.

7. The prayer, and the date from which the amount is sought, which should be the date of the application and not the date of the order.

Two habits decide the outcome. Quantify everything, because "reasonable maintenance" is not a prayer while "₹62,000 per month for the applicant plus ₹1,40,000 towards expenses" is. And disclose your own income honestly, because an applicant who conceals a salary or a rent receipt hands the respondent a weapon that costs more than the concealed amount.

The affidavit of disclosure

In Rajnesh v. Neha, the Supreme Court standardised affidavits of assets and liabilities across maintenance proceedings and directed that maintenance be awarded from the date of filing of the application. The Supreme Court of India published the judgment and the annexed formats. Fill the format completely, and press for the respondent's affidavit to be taken on record at the earliest hearing. A vague "I do not know his income" invites an adjournment; a specific one invites an order.

Documents to Attach With the Application

Attachments do more work than adjectives. Keep one indexed file with numbered pages and a synopsis.

• Copy of the divorce petition and proof of service on the respondent.
• Marriage certificate, and identity documents of both parties.
• Your bank statements for the last twelve months, all accounts.
• Your income proof: salary slips, Form 16, income tax returns, or a chartered accountant's certificate if you freelance.
• Rent agreement, school fee receipts, medical bills, insurance premia, loan statements.
• Whatever you hold on his income: earlier returns filed jointly, salary slips, Form 26AS, property documents, credit card statements.
• Evidence of litigation cost: the advocate's fee letter, court fee receipt, travel records.
• The signed and attested affidavit of assets and liabilities.

Filing checklist

• Serve the petition and keep the court's service report or acknowledgment on file.

• Complete the affidavit of assets and liabilities, including your own deposits and jewellery.

• Itemise monthly expenses to the rupee and back each line with a receipt.

• Claim litigation costs as a separate head, not folded into maintenance.

• Ask for the amount from the date of the application, not the date of the order.

• Attach his salary slips or income tax returns if you have them, and state how you got them.

• Diarise the sixty-day proviso and press for orders at every hearing.

How Courts Decide the Interim Figure

No statute fixes a percentage, and no judgment lays down a binding formula. The court weighs the status of the parties, the respondent's actual net income and genuine liabilities, the applicant's own income and earning capacity, the number of dependants, the standard of living during the marriage, and whether she has accommodation she does not have to pay for. Gross CTC in an offer letter impresses nobody; courts work from take-home pay after tax, provident fund and compulsory deductions. Read every "25% of salary" rule you find online as a description of past outcomes, not as law.

A worked example

Take a Family Court petition filed in Bengaluru in February 2026. The wife, 34, left a ₹55,000-a-month job in 2022 when the marriage relocated her and now earns about ₹18,000 freelancing. The husband, 38, is a senior manager with a take-home of ₹2.6 lakh a month after tax and provident fund; he services a ₹42,000 home loan EMI and an ₹18,000 car loan EMI on a car registered in his name. Their child is six.

Her application claims ₹85,000 a month for herself, ₹1,50,000 as litigation expenses, and child maintenance separately under Section 26. Her affidavit lists rent of ₹32,000, school fees of ₹9,500, groceries and household help of ₹18,000, transport of ₹6,000, medical and insurance of ₹5,500, and her own ₹18,000 income. On this arithmetic an interim order somewhere in the band of ₹45,000 to ₹55,000 a month for the wife, plus costs of about ₹75,000, is a realistic illustration of how these numbers settle. It is not a prediction, and it is well short of the ₹85,000 claimed and well above the ₹15,000 the husband's reply will offer. That gap is why every line in the affidavit must survive cross-examination.

Delay, Adjournments and Interim Relief That Sticks

Contested applications routinely run past the sixty-day mark, most often because the respondent avoids service or seeks adjournments on the reply. Three things shorten the wait. Serve properly and preserve proof. Ask for the order on the first effective date rather than accepting "file reply, list later". And file your disclosure affidavit with the application instead of promising it later, because mutual disclosure is the fastest route to a number.

Once passed, the order is enforceable. An order made in a proceeding under the Act is enforced in the same manner as a decree of the court, so arrears can be recovered by execution, and persistent default can be brought to the court's notice for directions. If his circumstances change, apply for enhancement; if yours change, expect a variation application against you. Section 28(2) makes orders under Sections 25 and 26 appealable, while a Section 24 order is ordinarily challenged by revision, and courts are slow to disturb a discretionary interim figure.

Common mistakes that cost money

• Claiming a round number with no arithmetic or receipts behind it.
• Concealing a salary or rental income and being confronted with your own bank statement.
• Ignoring litigation costs and then borrowing to fund hearings.
• Pleading his "package" instead of his take-home pay.
• Signing consent terms without a clause on arrears and costs already accrued.

How the Interim Order Influences the Final Settlement

The interim order does not bind the court deciding permanent alimony under Section 25, which weighs income, other property, conduct and dependants afresh. But it does three things in practice. It sets the floor for negotiation, because a husband who has paid ₹50,000 a month for two years has already priced the alternative to settlement. It accumulates arrears that remain recoverable. And it gives both sides a working estimate of what a final order might look like, which is often what moves a stalled mediation. Treat it as the anchor, not the prize. Where the marriage is over and the assets are known, a negotiated lump sum under Section 25, with stridhan and jewellery returned, usually beats a monthly order you must enforce every quarter.

Your next step is concrete: within the next fortnight, prepare the affidavit of assets and liabilities, collect twelve months of bank statements and every expense receipt you can find, and ask your advocate to move the Section 24 application with the litigation cost head included and the relief claimed from the date of filing.

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for your specific facts.