On 23 April 1985, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud held that Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure — the secular maintenance framework — applies to Muslim women, and that the right to maintenance does not end with the iddat period where the divorced wife is unable to support herself. The judgment's substantive disposition was reversed by the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986; the constitutional architecture it articulated, however, has continued to govern subsequent engagement with the question. A digest of the holding, the reasoning, and the doctrinal trajectory.