ISLAMABAD — The Supreme Court has ruled that a wife’s right to maintenance begins immediately after Nikah and is neither conditional on marital relations nor on Rukhsati (departure to the husband’s home). The landmark ruling came from a two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, setting aside a Lahore High Court judgment delivered in 2015 in the case of Ambreen Akram vs Asad Ullah Khan.
Authoring the 15-page judgment, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah observed that maintenance becomes a binding legal duty on the husband the moment the marriage contract is completed with the word “yes.” The court clarified that linking this obligation to physical presence or marital relations undermines women’s rights and provides space for men to evade responsibility.
The bench emphasized that the Constitution guarantees gender equality, and any interpretation that restricts women’s entitlement to maintenance contradicts this principle. The ruling further held that only in cases where the wife is kept away without justification may the husband be excused from his duty.
Criticising the language of the earlier LHC judgment, the court underlined that judges in family matters must act as reformers, adopting gender-sensitive and rights-based reasoning to affirm women’s equal legal status as autonomous persons.
