NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has dismissed a plea of husband and mother-in-law of a woman challenging framing of charge of dowry harassment against them, holding that there were specific allegations in the complaint which prima facie made out a case against them.
Special Judge Rajneesh Kumar Gupta upheld the magisterial court's order framing charges against the duo under section 498A (husband/relative subjecting women to cruelty) and an additional charge of criminal breach of trust against the mother-in-law while relying on the contents of the complaint. "After going through the allegations as made in the FIR, I am of the opinion that as there are specific allegations against petitioners (husband and mother-in-law) that they used to harass complainant to meet their illegal demands of dowry... (and) "...her mother-in-law has not returned the 'istridhan' (wedding gifts) articles to her despite her demands, so a prima facie case under sections 498A of IPC is made out against both petitioners and a prima facie case under section 406 (criminal breach of trust) of IPC is made out against mother-in-law," the judge said.
The sessions court dismissed the revision petition filed by the woman's husband and his mother against trial court's January 7 order directing framing of charges against them. In their plea, the accused mother-son duo said the trial court's order was based on surmises and conjectures which was against law and facts of the case.
They claimed that the woman had left the matrimonial house with her belongings and falsely implicated them in connivance with her employer with whom she had a love affair. To this, the court said it can be decided on the merits of the case after the evidence has been led. The woman, who got married to the accused in 1998, alleged in her complaint that soon after her wedding, her motherinlaw began taunting her and harassing her for dowry and also used to instigate her son to beat her.
She claimed that she was harassed and tortured after she gave birth to a baby girl in 2001 and in 2003, she was kickedout of the matrimonial house after she gave birth to another child. It further alleged that the ornaments of the woman were taken away by her mother-in-law forcefully.