BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court quashed the proceedings initiated by a woman against her husband, parents-in-law and brother-in-law over minor skirmishes, and said indiscriminate roping in of parents-in-law and brother-in-law is more disquieting, considering that they lived in India, while she led her marital life abroad.
Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order, allowing the petition filed by Abuzar Ahmed, his parents and brother, questioning the proceedings initiated by his wife under Sections 498A (harassment and cruelty by husband), 504 (intentional insult) of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.
She registered the police complaint in 2024 after staying for about six years in the USA following the marriage in 2017 and having two children. Most allegations mentioned in the complaint happened during her stay with her husband in the US.
She had made several allegations, including that her husband did not allow her to eat French fries, consume rice and meat after she delivered a child, saying she would put on weight. These allegations, even if accepted at face value, falls woefully short of depicting the statutory cruelty under Section 498A, the court added.
The complaint further narrates that the husband stopped receiving calls, and he is said to have called his brother and parents to go and stay with him in the USA.
The court said if this is the complaint against the husband and in-laws, it cannot but be held that it is an abuse of the process of law, as minor skirmishes that happen in the family between the husband and wife are projected to become a crime for offences punishable under Section 498A or even under Section 504.
It is shocking as to how, without any preliminary inquiry as directed by the Apex Court in the case of Lalita Kumari, the complaint is even registered by the jurisdictional police and above all, the husband is stopped from moving away from the shores of the nation on frivolous allegations on account of issuance of Look Out Circular, the court observed.
The court noted that Section 498A is not a panacea for all matrimonial ills. It is a targeted provision meant to address grave cruelty, conduct so wilful and pernicious so as to imperil life, limb or mental health or even harassment tethered to unlawful demands of dowry, the court added.