Mohd Abdul Samad v. State of Telangana: divorced Muslim women, Section 125 CrPC, and the restoration of Shah Bano

The Supreme Court's judgment of 10 July 2024 in Mohd Abdul Samad v. State of Telangana — reported as 2024 INSC 506 — is the most consequential family-law ruling on the maintenance rights of divorced Muslim women in the post-Shah Bano generation. A two-judge bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih held that the divorced Muslim woman retains, after the 1986 Act, the secular maintenance right that Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 supplies — and that the 1986 Act operates as an additional architecture rather than as a displacement of the secular right.

The judgment restores the doctrinal architecture that Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum (1985) had set down — the architecture that the 1986 Act had been understood, on one reading, to have displaced. The restoration produces a constitutional architecture in which the divorced Muslim woman has an option: to seek maintenance under the 1986 Act, under Section 125 CrPC (now Section 144 BNSS), or under both.

The doctrinal background

Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum — decided by a five-judge Constitution Bench in 1985 — had held that a divorced Muslim woman was entitled to claim maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, against her former husband. The judgment had located the maintenance right in the secular criminal-procedure architecture and had treated the right as available regardless of the religious identity of the parties.

The political response to Shah Bano had produced the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The Act had supplied a separate architecture for the maintenance of divorced Muslim women — including the husband's obligation to make reasonable and fair provision for the maintenance of the divorced wife during the iddat period and to pay the mahr. The Act had been read, on one understanding, as displacing the Section 125 CrPC route for divorced Muslim women in favour of the personal-law-grounded architecture that the Act supplied.

The constitutional question that Mohd Abdul Samad posed was whether the 1986 Act had, in fact, displaced the Section 125 route — or whether it operated alongside the secular right that Section 125 CrPC supplied.

The Court's reasoning

The Bench held that the 1986 Act had not displaced the Section 125 route. The reasoning rested on three connected propositions.

The first was that Section 125 CrPC is a secular provision of general application. The provision operates on all married women — including Muslim married women — and on all non-Muslim divorced women. The text of the provision does not exclude divorced Muslim women from its scope; the exclusion, if any, would have to come from a statutory displacement.

The second was that the 1986 Act, read in its substantive text, is not in derogation of Section 125 CrPC but in addition to it. The Act's architecture supplies a route for divorced Muslim women to claim maintenance under the personal-law-grounded framework; it does not, on the textual reading, foreclose the secular route under Section 125.

The third was that the divorced Muslim woman has, on this construction, an option. She may seek maintenance under the 1986 Act, under Section 125 CrPC (now Section 144 BNSS), or under both. The choice is hers; the constitutional architecture does not compel her to elect one route in preference to the other.

The doctrinal frame the Bench supplied — that the 1986 Act operates as an addition rather than a substitution — restores the Shah Bano line. The architecture under which the divorced Muslim woman operates after 10 July 2024 is the architecture that Shah Bano had recognised, supplemented (not displaced) by the 1986 Act.

The Section 144 BNSS transition

A doctrinally important feature of the judgment is its application to the transition from the CrPC to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. Section 144 of the BNSS — the successor to Section 125 CrPC — came into force on 1 July 2024, nine days before the Mohd Abdul Samad judgment was delivered.

The Bench's holding operates seamlessly on both architectures. The proposition that the maintenance right is secular and of general application — and that the 1986 Act operates in addition to that right — applies to Section 144 BNSS as it did to Section 125 CrPC. The content of the maintenance right is materially preserved across the transition.

For practitioners, the operational consequence is that proceedings filed under Section 125 CrPC before 1 July 2024 continue under that provision; proceedings filed after 1 July 2024 operate under Section 144 BNSS; and the substantive entitlement that the Mohd Abdul Samad line confirms operates under both.

The facts of the case

The facts of the case were of a relatively conventional shape. The wife had moved a petition for interim maintenance under Section 125(1) CrPC before the Family Court. The Family Court had allowed the petition and had ordered the husband to pay interim maintenance of ₹20,000 per month.

The husband had challenged the order, contending — in substance — that the 1986 Act foreclosed the Section 125 route for a divorced Muslim woman. The challenge had failed at the High Court stage; the husband had then moved the Supreme Court.

The Court rejected the contention. The Section 125 route was held to be open; the Family Court's order was sustained.

What the judgment did not decide

Three limits should be flagged.

First, the judgment does not engage with the quantum of maintenance under Section 125 CrPC / Section 144 BNSS for divorced Muslim women. The architecture for quantum continues to operate as it does for non-Muslim divorced women; the doctrinal frame on factors relevant to quantum has been developed in subsequent jurisprudence.

Second, the judgment does not address the constitutional question of whether the 1986 Act itself is constitutionally valid. The Act's provisions continue to operate; the judgment merely holds that they operate alongside Section 125 CrPC / Section 144 BNSS.

Third, the judgment does not engage with the doctrinal questions on the interaction between the maintenance right under Section 125 CrPC / Section 144 BNSS and the maintenance obligation under the 1986 Act. Where a divorced Muslim woman has obtained relief under one architecture, the relationship to relief that may be sought under the other architecture has been left for case-by-case engagement.

The doctrinal arc

Mohd Abdul Samad sits in a substantial constitutional and family-law line on the maintenance rights of women and on the interaction between personal-law and secular-law architectures.

The line begins with Shah Bano (1985) — the foundational ruling on the Section 125 CrPC maintenance route for divorced Muslim women. It continues through the 1986 Act and the subsequent jurisprudence on the Act's architecture, including Danial Latifi v. Union of India (2001) — which had read the 1986 Act's scheme to require the husband to make reasonable and fair provision for maintenance beyond the iddat period. It includes Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017) — the triple talaq judgment — and the broader line on personal-law architectures and gender equality.

Mohd Abdul Samad is the most recent doctrinal restoration in this line. It supplies the architecture under which the divorced Muslim woman now operates: the secular maintenance right under Section 125 CrPC / Section 144 BNSS, supplemented by the personal-law-grounded architecture of the 1986 Act, with the divorced woman holding the option.

What practitioners take from the judgment today

For family-law practitioners advising divorced Muslim women, the operational architecture is the secular maintenance route under Section 144 BNSS read with — and supplemented by — the 1986 Act. The doctrinal frame is the Mohd Abdul Samad holding that the routes operate alongside each other.

For practitioners advising on the quantum and on the procedural architecture, the engagement with the conventional Section 125 / Section 144 jurisprudence is the operative frame. The factors relevant to quantum — the husband's means, the wife's needs, the standard of living during the marriage, and the conditions of the divorce — operate as they do across the broader maintenance line.

For the broader constitutional and family-law bar, the judgment is the most consequential doctrinal moment in the Shah Bano line since 1985. The architecture under which the divorced Muslim woman operates has, after Mohd Abdul Samad, been substantially clarified and restored.

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