Supreme Court of India · 2020
Rajnesh v. Neha & Anr.
Rajnesh v. Neha & Anr. is a 2020 decision of the Supreme Court awarding Rs 15,000 a month.
Get an estimate built from 292 reported judgements, including this one.
Calculate your maintenance →Awarded
Rs 15,000a month, about Rs 19,452 in today's money
Award type
Monthly
Child maintenance
Rs 10,000a month
Marriage lasted
4 years
Children
1
Claimed under
Outcome
Granted
What the court was looking at
By the date of the petition the marriage was 4 years old. There was one child, so child maintenance sat alongside the wife's own claim. The ground pleaded was cruelty. The wife was described as homemaker.
What the court held
The holdingThe court laid down comprehensive guidelines governing maintenance across every statute: what a court must weigh when fixing quantum, mandatory affidavits of assets and liabilities from both sides, maintenance running from the date of the application rather than the date of the order, and disclosure of overlapping claims so an earlier award can be set off against a later one.
Why it is still cited
This is the closest thing Indian law has to a maintenance rulebook, and every order made since 2020 is meant to work through its list. It is the single most useful judgement on this site for anyone trying to predict a figure.
How it gets misread
Read it with thisIn 2023 the Supreme Court noted that judges were still not following these guidelines and directed the judgement to be recirculated to every High Court and judicial academy. Compliance is uneven, so citing it in your own matter is worth doing explicitly.
The point of interest
Landmark 9-factor framework.
How it fits the framework
Since Rajnesh v. Neha in 2020, every maintenance order in India is meant to work through the same list of factors: the standard of living the marriage ran at, what the applicant reasonably needs, whether she is qualified and earning, and whether she gave up work for the family. A judgement from 2020 was decided before that list was written down, but the reasoning behind it is the reasoning courts had been applying for decades. There is a fuller account in how maintenance is calculated.
The calculator walks the same factors a magistrate does, then shows you the judgements nearest your facts.
See your estimate →Judgements near this one
Ranked by court, then by income bracket and marriage length rather than by date, so the comparison is with cases a court would actually treat as similar. Every row links to its own page.
| Case | Court | Year | Awarded | Claimed under | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mohd. Abdul Samad v. State of Telangana | Supreme Court of India | 2024 | Rs 10,000 | Section 125 CrPC | Granted |
| Shamima Farooqui v. Shahid Khan | Supreme Court of India | 2015 | Rs 4,000Rs 6,649 in today's money | Section 125 CrPC | Granted |
| Reema Salkan v. Sumer Singh Salkan | Supreme Court of India | 2018 | Not stated | Section 125 CrPC | Granted |
| Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan | Supreme Court of India | 2023 | Not stated | Article 142 | Granted |
| Kalyan Dey Chowdhury v. Rita Dey Chowdhury | Supreme Court of India | 2017 | Rs 20,000Rs 30,909 in today's money | Section 25 HMA | Granted |
Sources
- (2021) 2 SCC 324
- Full text of the judgement on IndianKanoon.
- Inflation adjustment method: how we restate old awards.
This page summarises a reported judgement for general information. It is not legal advice and it is not a substitute for reading the judgement itself or speaking to a lawyer about your own facts.
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