The Bombay high court has ruled that the second marriage of a Muslim man cannot be the reason for either stopping payment of maintenance to the first wife or reducing it.

"In fact as per the enjoinment in Islamic Law, a person would be entitled to marry for the second time if he was capable of maintaining both the wives equally fairly," observed Justice Roshan Dalvi while hearing a plea of a woman who sought a raise in maintenance payable by her husband.

"If the husband is in a position to earn, the fact that the husband has remarried and has a second wife, cannot bring down the quantum of maintenance for the first wife whom the husband has failed and neglected to maintain", the judge ruled in a recent order.