Supreme Court Quashes Section 498a Case Against In-Laws, Finds Former Wife’s Intention to Wreak Vengeance

The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed a criminal case filed under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against former in-laws of a woman alleging them of cruelty and harassment.

A bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose, PV Sanjay Kumar, and SVN Bhatti observed that the allegations of dowry harassment and marital cruelty were general and omnibus and that the woman “clearly wanted to wreak vengeance against her in-laws.“

The Highest Court noted, “They (the allegations) are so far-fetched and improbable that no prudent person can conclude that there are sufficient grounds to proceed against them … Permitting the criminal process to go on against the appellants in such a situation would, therefore, result in clear and patent injustice.“

The Supreme Court was hearing appeals in which a Madhya Pradesh High Court order was challenged that had refused to quash the proceedings against the woman’s former brothers-in-law and her mother-in-law.

The husband had earlier got a decree of divorce dissolving their marriage. Later on, the woman filed an appeal against the grant of divorce which was pending before the High Court.

During that phase, the woman also put allegations of cruelty due to which a chargesheet was filed against all three accused citing offences under Section 498A of the IPC and the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.

The allegations of woman were cruelty, dowry harassment, and miserable living conditions at her matrimonial home.

Moreover, she also sent complaints to the Mumbai anti-corruption bureau and the Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice against one of her brothers-in-law who had joined judicial service as a civil judge, a few months after the woman’s marriage to his brother.

The apex Court quashed the criminal proceedings begun by the woman against her in-laws, noting that there were glaring inconsistencies and discrepancies in the events she stated about.

The Court also noted that the woman had consciously parted ways from her matrimonial home in 2009 but had not filed any complaint against her in-laws until 2013, “just before her husband instituted divorce proceedings.“

Regarding the allegations against the judicial officer, the top court asked why he would get into an act of demanding dowry from the woman (complainant), even if he were inclined to do such kind of offence when he was even married to someone else.

Since the woman had also earlier confessed that she made a vicious complaint against the judicial officer to the High Court, the Court concluded that her intentions were not clear and the cases seemed to be concocted.

The Court also found it hard to consider her allegations that her mother-in-law had taunted her on wearing the maxi dress by saying that “she should be undressed and made to dance on the street“.

The Court termed her allegation on her former mother-in-law “wholly insufficient to constitute cruelty in terms of Section 498A IPC.“

Thus, the Court allowed the appeals. The criminal complaint of dowry and harassment proceedings against the in-laws were quashed.

Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra with advocates Anmol Kheta, Dushyant Dahiya, Kausar Husain, Kumar Kashyap, and Dinesh Chandra Pandey represented the former in-laws of the complainant-woman.

Advocates Abhinav Shrivastava, Sunny Choudhary, RP Singh, Sasmit Patra, Nidhi, Shivang Rawat, Pashupathi Nath Razdan, Mohit Girdhar, Karan Bishnoi, Sarthak Arora, Sandeep Sharma, Maitreyee Jagat Joshi, Abhimanyu Singh, Nirmal Kumar Ambastha, and Astik Gupta represented the Madhya Pradesh government.

Source: https://www.barandbench.com/news/supreme-court-quashes-section-498a-ipc-case-against-in-laws