Maintenance - nafqa - is the obligation to provide for a wife and for children. It is claimed in the Family Court, and unlike most litigation in Pakistan it moves relatively quickly, because the statute imposes timelines and gives the court power to order interim maintenance while the case runs.
Who is entitled
A wife is entitled to maintenance during the subsistence of the marriage, and during the iddat period following divorce. She does not lose the entitlement by living separately where she has a justified reason for doing so - cruelty, the husband's failure to maintain, or a second marriage contracted without permission.
Children are entitled to maintenance from the father regardless of who has custody. A son is generally entitled until he attains majority and is able to earn; a daughter until she marries. A child with a disability preventing self-support remains entitled beyond that.
The obligation to maintain children does not depend on the father's relationship with the mother, and it does not end because he has remarried or has other children.
How the amount is fixed
There is no statutory formula. The court weighs:
- The father's or husband's means - salary, business income, property, standard of living
- The needs of the wife and children - schooling, medical, accommodation
- The standard of living the family enjoyed during the marriage
- Any income of the wife, which is relevant but does not extinguish the husband's obligation
Where the respondent conceals income - which is routine - the court can draw inferences from lifestyle, property, vehicle ownership and travel. Tax returns, salary slips and bank statements are the documents to seek, and the court can be asked to summon them.
Family Courts commonly provide for an annual increase in the maintenance amount, to prevent an order being eroded by inflation and to avoid repeated litigation. Asking for this expressly in the plaint is worthwhile.
Interim maintenance
The Family Courts Act allows the court to fix interim maintenance at an early stage, payable monthly while the suit is pending. This matters enormously in practice: the case may take a year, and the family needs to eat during it.
Where interim maintenance is ordered and not paid, the court has power to strike out the defence of the defaulting party. That is a serious sanction and it is used.
Enforcement - the part that decides everything
A maintenance decree that is not enforced is a piece of paper. Enforcement is by execution in the Family Court, and the available measures include:
- Attachment of salary, by direction to the employer. This is the most effective remedy where the respondent is employed, and it should be the first request.
- Attachment and sale of property belonging to the judgment debtor.
- Recovery as arrears of land revenue, which engages the revenue machinery.
- Arrest and civil detention of a judgment debtor who has the means and refuses to pay.
Arrears accumulate. A respondent who ignores an order for two years owes two years of maintenance, and the decree can be executed for the whole amount. Delay in filing execution does not reduce the debt, but it does make recovery harder as assets are moved.
If you are the respondent
Ignoring the proceedings is the worst available strategy: the court will proceed ex parte, fix an amount on the claimant's evidence alone, and the order will be harder to challenge than to contest in the first place.
Where means have genuinely changed - job loss, illness, a change in responsibilities - the proper course is an application to vary the order, supported by documents. Courts do reduce maintenance on proper proof. They do not reduce it on assertion.
Practical points
- Claim maintenance for the wife and each child separately and by name, with amounts.
- File maintenance, dower, dowry articles and custody in one suit where possible.
- Attach school fee vouchers, medical bills and rent receipts - specific documented need moves the number more than a round figure.
- Ask for the annual increase in the prayer clause.
- File execution promptly on the first default, not after a year of promises.
This article describes the general law on maintenance in Pakistan. It is not advice on any specific claim; the amount always turns on evidence of means. Consult an advocate.