I have been perplexed at the frequent arrival at this site by women (it can’t be men) after googling about IPC 498a and maintenance, yes, both those keywords together.   One of these past days, I found so many of these searched keywords that I just had to save the screenshot that day which is given below.

Above screenshot shows various google searched keywords by women who land up on my perennially popular post advising women on 498a, DV cases, maintenance, divorce etc.  In above pic, have marked with numbers the various searched keywords about 498a, maintenance, DV, and their combos.

First of all, a big thank you to all women coming to my website for getting some real education on 498a, DV, maintenance etc for women!  That post is meant for your education, and even if I have failed in the attempt to convince many of you, it doesn’t matter.  You may hate my guts and call me a misogynistic a$$hole and that’s ok, it comes with the territory

To give an analogy, when you were a student, even if you didn’t like to sit in your maths class, I am sure that ability to do basic arithmetic has been a great help to you in tracking your salary and expenses; so there should be  no good reason to hate your maths teacher.  What?  You don’t work? … Well, here’s one more unsolicited advice.  Stop dreaming about getting rich on maintenance and alimony from husband and take up some work.  According to highly scientific studies conducted by Men Rights India, women who are married or who work themselves are more well-off than those who mainly survive on pension called maintenance from husband.  Those cases of women becoming rich overnight after divorces happen to a few women married to movie stars or celebrities.  You and I need to work to earn a decent living.  Besides, being rich is not everything, dignity counts for something in life.

Coming back to our google keywords, see the keywords marked 4 and 5 above, which clearly are by some women who believe that IPC 498a is a way to get maintenance from husband!  Well it is not a direct way at least, unless you believe  that to get the most juice (money) out of husband, you need to squeeze him in the 498a machine like one crushes sugarcane to get its juice out.

Above pic: Women with plan to crush juice out of husband! … Don’t be that woman!

So after having given unsolicited advice, let me come to the main point of this post which is to make you lose your illusions about 498a and maintenance.

Q1: How much maintenance allotted to woman under 498a?

IPC 498a is section 498a of Indian Penal Code (IPC) dealing with cruelty to wives by husband or relatives.  The kind of cruelty should be of such nature that it would drive a woman to suicide.  It DOES NOT say anything about maintenance of wives by husbands.  Criminal law is NOT meant to give compensation or ongoing payments to victim(s), that would be illegal under Indian law because it would be in the nature of blood money.  So if you want to file 498a and expect to get Rs 50,000 per month for the rest of life from husband, forget it!

See that woman in the picture operating the sugarcane juicer.  Well, I bet she will earn lot more running a business of sugarcane juice over the long term, rather than trying to crush husband in that machine using 498a.

But my lawyer said: “498a will bring your husband to his senses!”

I bet your husband has got his senses back after you filed 498a on him!  After filing 498a on him, whatever illusions he had (or his parents) about being able to settle with you will evaporate quicker than you can say the word evaporate.  So your lawyer is right; your husband is getting back his senses all right, and hopefully he is working in a team with other men’s rights activists (MRAs) who are fighting back, are collectively stronger and smarter than you, your relatives, and that 3rd rate lawyer you seem to rely upon so much.

Q2: How many years the maintenance case runs under 498a?

As I answered above, a maintenance case does not and cannot run as part of 498a, so go ahead and file a maintenance case separately if that’s what you want; at least the advocates of both parties will be richer after that.

But coming back to bigger question: how many years do you have in your life, or youth?  Because even if you don’t try to delay anything, a 498a case may run for 7-10 years at the minimum anyway.  A maintenance case will test your patience for several years and even if you get an interim order and some maintenance under that, a married housewife will be able to have higher financial status compared to gold diggers like you based on the kind of maintenance awarded in courts.  So unless your husband happens to be Adnan Sami, living in relative poverty compared to the married sisterhood is the future I can see.  Even a Prince Tully is not ready to oblige an attacking Yukta Mookhey.  So even high status men are no longer embarrassed to face a case from wife and are ready to hit back.  But as they say, I am just the bearer of bad news -- don’t shoot the messenger!

I know a woman who got xx lakh, OR this another woman got 1 property from husband after filing 498a

And I know plenty of men fighting their cases without missing a heartbeat or a night’s sleep and their wives are not getting any maintenance OR a basic sum like x,000 kind of amount per month which can get you by on house rent, food, and some basic expenses.  No foreign holidays, fancy car, 3-bedroom house with EMIs paid by husband for you, unfortunately!

The whole thing boils down to statistics, for every 1 such woman who got rich, there are 50 others with nothing to ‘show’ except meagre maintenance and a confirmed divorcee status on the way, and as the years are passing by, the biological clock is ticking and future becoming bleaker by the day.  Do you really think the next husband will not ask about your past 498a case, and you can use that abla-naari card and portray yourselves as innocent divorcee successfully all the time and net that second rich husband too so easily?  Hey, if every divorced woman in the market for second marriage is an innocent divorcee, then who exactly is the at-fault divorcee?  That trick could work only so long when most of society continued to believe that men are the perpetrators and women the innocent, but as times change, people’s perceptions are changing quickly too.  No one is prepared to accept a so called innocent-divorcee-woman at face value.  Be prepared to disclose what and how many cases you had filed on ex-husband to ‘procure’ that divorce.  Day by day people are becoming suspicious of divorcee women with short marriages, and that trend is not slowing down since the sisterhood of 498a/false DV/false rape is not stopping either in filing false cases!

Besides, what is the guarantee that even if you get some lump sum windfall out of your wrecking ball 498a/divorce, all that windfall is going to YOUR bank account, and not your mother, father, or other relatives?  After all, everyone would want to have their own share of the loot, and once the spoils are distributed, there may not be much left to sustain you for more than a few years.  And that second husband may not be seen appearing at the end of this looooooong, dark tunnel.

Don’t be that woman.