28 Years After Divorce, Woman Gets Alimony

Better late than never! And in the Delhi lower judiciary court’s defense, she filed late…they’ve only been deliberating the case for 17 years.

Inderjeet Singh and Jasbir Kaur, who married in 1978, divorced five years later. Not understanding her legal rights, Kaur didn’t sue for alimony until 1995. And from there on out, it was in the hands of the courts. Says NDTV.com,

Singh, a former sergeant with the Indian Air Force, was asked to pay alimony to Kaur by Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Rajneesh Kumar Gupta who said, “It is a settled law that a divorced wife is entitled to and can claim maintenance till she remarries. Divorce does not end the right to maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code.” The ASJ asked Singh to pay maintenance, upholding the May 26, 2010 order of the magisterial court, which had told him to pay his ex-wife a monthly maintenance of Rs. 3,000 from the date of filing of her application in April 1995. The magisterial court had also ordered him to pay with retrospective effect the monthly maintenance of Rs. 3000 to his son “from December 1985 till November 1996 when he attained the majority.”

It may be good news for Kaur, but we imagine she could have used the money in raising her son. One can only hope the case, if nothing else, makes divorcees aware of the alimony due them by the courts — if they’re willing to wait.