Noor Saba Khatoon v Mohd. Quasim (Supreme Court, 1997) — the children's maintenance is their own, not capped at two years

Section 3(1)(b) of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 gives the divorced mother a provision for the children "for a period of two years from the respective dates of birth". Husbands argued that this was all a Muslim child could get. Noor Saba Khatoon is the answer, and it is asked whenever children appear in a maintenance problem.

Noor Saba Khatoon married Mohd. Quasim under Muslim rites on 27 October 1980; three children were born, two daughters and a son. She alleged that he turned her and the children — then aged six, three and one and a half — out of the matrimonial home, refused to maintain them, and took a second wife, Shahnawaz Begum. She claimed maintenance for herself and the children under s. 125 CrPC, pleading that he had agricultural land and an electrical-appliances business. The husband divorced her during the proceedings and contended that, after the 1986 Act, the children's claim was limited to two years from birth.

In the Court's words: whether the children of Muslim parents are entitled to maintenance under s. 125 CrPC until they attain majority or can maintain themselves (or, for daughters, until marriage), "or is their right restricted to the grant of maintenance only for a period of two years prescribed under Section 3(1)(b)" of the 1986 Act.

Anand J. held that the two provisions operate in different fields. Section 3(1)(b) confers a right on the divorced mother — to be paid, for two years from each birth, for maintaining the children in her custody. It does not touch the children's independent right against their father. The Court's answer: children of Muslim parents are entitled to claim maintenance under s. 125 CrPC "till they attain majority or are able to maintain themselves, whichever is earlier and in case of females, till they get married", and "Section 3(1)(b) of the 1986 Act does not in any way affect the rights of the minor children of divorced Muslim parents to claim maintenance from their father" for that period.

1. The children's right to maintenance from the father under the general criminal-procedure provision lasts until majority or self-sufficiency (marriage, for a daughter).
2. Section 3(1)(b) of the 1986 Act is the mother's right to a provision for two years; it neither replaces nor limits the children's own right.

Section 125 CrPC is now s. 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which likewise covers a "legitimate or illegitimate child, whether married or not, unable to maintain itself".