If your husband has been ordered by the court to pay interim maintenance but is not making these payments on time, understanding your available enforcement remedies to compel his compliance is genuinely important.

The first and most direct step, before pursuing formal enforcement measures, is having your advocate send a formal reminder or notice to your husband, or his advocate, specifically referencing the court order and the specific outstanding amount, since sometimes a formal, documented reminder is sufficient to prompt compliance, particularly if the delay reflects genuine oversight rather than deliberate refusal.

If this reminder does not result in proper and timely payment, the specific enforcement mechanism available to you depends on whether this interim maintenance was ordered under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, within your matrimonial proceedings, or under Section 125 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), and, in either case, the fundamental approach is similar, involving formally bringing this specific non-compliance to the court's attention.

For maintenance ordered under Section 125 of the BNSS specifically, as discussed extensively in relation to the specific enforcement mechanism and limitation period for maintenance recovery, you can file an application before the same Magistrate who passed the order, specifically bringing to the court's attention that your husband has failed to comply, and, upon being satisfied that this non-compliance is genuinely without sufficient cause, the Magistrate can issue a distress warrant, directing the attachment and sale of your husband's movable property to recover the outstanding amount, treating this as if it were an unpaid fine.

If this specific non-compliance continues despite this attachment process, or if your husband's continued and wilful default warrants this further coercive measure, the Magistrate additionally retains the power to sentence him to imprisonment for a term extending up to one month, or until the amount is paid, whichever occurs sooner, for each specific instance of default, providing a genuinely significant coercive incentive for compliance.

For interim maintenance ordered under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act specifically, if your husband fails to comply with this specific order, you can pursue an execution petition before the same Family Court that passed the order, invoking the enforcement provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, seeking attachment and sale of his property to satisfy the outstanding maintenance amount.

Beyond these specific financial enforcement mechanisms, it is genuinely worth understanding that persistent and wilful non-compliance with a court's own order can also potentially be raised as contempt of court, given the genuine seriousness with which courts view deliberate defiance of their own orders, and discussing this specific additional avenue with your advocate may be appropriate given the particular pattern and severity of your husband's non-compliance.

If your husband claims he is genuinely unable to pay due to a specific and verifiable change in his financial circumstances since the original order was passed, it is worth understanding that this specific claim needs to be properly assessed, since if this claim is genuine, the appropriate path for him would be to formally apply to the court for modification of the order, rather than simply and unilaterally failing to pay, and if he has not pursued this specific formal route, his continued non-compliance without this proper application generally strengthens your position in seeking enforcement.

If you have genuine and immediate financial hardship given this non-payment, it is worth ensuring your advocate specifically and urgently pursues these enforcement remedies, rather than allowing the arrears to accumulate indefinitely, since, as discussed in relation to the specific limitation period applicable to maintenance recovery, promptly pursuing the summary warrant mechanism within the applicable one-year window for each specific instalment preserves your access to this more efficient enforcement tool.

Given how genuinely important it is to properly and promptly pursue enforcement to secure the financial support you are entitled to and genuinely need, it is essential to consult an experienced family law advocate. You can reach out via Aapka Legal Advice for urgent guidance on enforcing your court-ordered interim maintenance given your husband's continued non-payment.

You can review Top Divorce Lawyers in India | Aapka Legal Advice for relevant experience handling maintenance enforcement matters.

Many people find real value in obtaining an independent, experienced perspective from the panel of retired judges available through certain legal consultation platforms.

If formal legal representation is required, engaging an experienced advocate will ensure the most effective available enforcement mechanism is properly and promptly pursued.

In summary, if a husband is not paying court-ordered interim maintenance on time, a wife can send a formal reminder through her advocate, and, if this does not resolve the issue, pursue enforcement through a distress warrant application under Section 125(3) of the BNSS if the maintenance was ordered under that specific provision, or an execution petition under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 if ordered under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, with continued wilful non-compliance potentially supporting imprisonment as a further coercive measure, and contempt of court proceedings representing an additional avenue worth discussing given the particular pattern of non-compliance involved.