The Madhya Pradesh high court has observed that a wife can be debarred from maintenance on the basis of adultery only if she is “living in adultery at or around the time of filing application”. The court made this observation while dismissing a revision petition filed by a man against a family court’s order that awarded Rs 10,000 maintenance to his wife. The couple in the case got married in March 2015 and later obtained an ex parte divorce in December 2016. The husband alleged that the wife was indulging in adultery by speaking with another man over the phone at night and produced some photographs as evidence. However, the court concluded that the husband was unable to prove the adultery and upheld the family court’s order. According to the court, adultery under Section 125(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) has to be continuous and the burden of proving it lies upon the husband to debar the wife from getting maintenance. The court clarified that the term “wife” in the CrPC includes a woman who has been divorced by her husband and has not remarried. It emphasized that the wife can only be denied maintenance on grounds of adultery if she is actually living in adultery at or around the time of the application.