Hindu Married Women's Right to Separate Residence and Maintenance Act, 1946

This 1946 Act gives Hindu married women in Pakistan the legal right to live separately from their husband and claim maintenance from him under specific circumstances, overriding any contrary custom or law.

Section 2 lists the grounds on which a Hindu married woman can claim separate residence and maintenance: if her husband has a loathsome disease not contracted from her; if he has been cruel to her in a way that makes living with him unsafe or undesirable; if he has deserted her (abandoned her without her consent or against her wishes); if he remarries; if he converts away from Hinduism to another religion; if he keeps a concubine in the home or habitually lives with one; or for any other justifiable cause. However, she is not entitled to this if she herself is unchaste, converts to another religion, or fails without sufficient cause to comply with a court decree ordering restitution of conjugal rights.

Section 3 requires the court, when granting such a claim, to set the maintenance amount the husband must pay, taking into account the social standing of the parties and the extent of the husband's financial means.

This is an old statute (1946) governing Hindu personal law on marital maintenance, and while it lists the qualifying grounds and general factors for setting the amount, it does not state a specific maintenance figure -- that is determined case by case by the court based on the parties' circumstances.