Under Muslim law, the are bound to maintain their necessitous parents and grand-parents. The Islamic principle is that as the children have right to be maintained by their parents, they have also a corresponding duty to provide maintenance to their parents, if need be so. Rules of Muslim law, relating to the maintenance of parents may be stated as under:
(1) The children are bound to maintain their parents only if they are in easy circumstances and the parents are poor. In other words, only needy parents are entitled to get maintenance from their children. By easy circumstance is meant a circumstance in which a person need not depend on begging for his livelihood. On the other hand, a person is needy or necessitous if he has to beg for his livelihood.
(2) Sons and daughters, both are equally liable to maintain their parents. There is no difference between a son and a daughter in respect of this liability; their responsibility to maintain the parents is joint and equal. But, if a child is poor and the other is in easy circumstances, the liability lies on the child who is in easy circumstances.
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ADVERTISEMENTS:
(3) A son, though poor and is in strained circumstances, is bound to maintain his mother, if she is poor. A son, who is poor but is earning something, is bound to support his poor father who earns nothing.
(4) If a child is in a position to support only one of its parents, the mother gets priority over father. But, under the Ithna Asharia Shia law, the child may distribute the maintenance allowance between fathers and mother equally, if both of them are needy.
(5) If the children are unable to support their parents separately, they may be compelled to take their parents with them and to live together.
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(6) A son is not bound to maintain his step-mother. Thus, he is not bound to maintain that wife of his father who is not his own mother. Where a father has two or more wives, the maintenance of one should be delivered to him to dispense among all of them.
(7) Even if the religion of the parents differs from that of the children the parents are entitled to be maintained, provided they are poor.
Maintenance of the Grand-Parents:
The children are bound to provide maintenance to their paternal or maternal grandparents if the grand-parents are poor and need support for their livelihood. But the grandparents are entitled io maintenance from their grand-children only in the absence of their own children. Thus, grand-parents are not entitled to maintenance from grand-children if they have their own children.
Statutory Provisions for the Maintenance of Parents:
Under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, provision has been made also for the maintenance of parents. A magistrate of the first class may order a person to make monthly allowance, not exceeding rupees five hundred, if the person has sufficient means but neglects or refuses to maintain his father or mother who is unable to maintain himself (or herself). The statutory rules relating to the maintenance of parents are the same as that for the children.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
It may be noted that the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, is applicable to all the persons without any reference to their religion. The result is that the parent’s right of maintenance is not affected if the parents have become non-Muslims.