Marital cruelty allegations must be carefully examined to prevent injustice: Supreme Court in Section 498A case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday observed that courts must act with care, caution, and pragmatism while scrutinizing allegations of matrimonial cruelty to prevent miscarriages of justice, while quashing one such case registered under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) [Shobhit Kumar Mittal v. State of Uttar Pradesh].

The judgment passed by a Bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice R Mahadevan stated,

"Courts have to be careful and cautious in dealing with complaints and must take pragmatic realities into consideration while dealing with matrimonial disputes where the allegations have to be scrutinized with great care and circumspection in order to prevent miscarriage of justice and abuse of process of law."

The Court added that vague and general allegations of harassment, without specific details, are insufficient to sustain criminal proceedings against any person in such cases.

"In cases involving allegations of cruelty and harassment, there would normally be a series of offending acts, which would be required to be spelt out by the complainant against perpetrators in specific terms to initiate criminal proceedings against them. Therefore, mere general allegations of harassment without pointing out the specific details would not be sufficient to continue criminal proceedings against any person Courts have to be careful and cautious in dealing with complaints and must take pragmatic realities into consideration while dealing with matrimonial disputes where the allegations have to be scrutinized with great care and circumspection in order to prevent miscarriage of justice and abuse of process of law," it observed in the September 24 ruling.

The Court was hearing a plea filed by a man (appellant) who challenged the Allahabad High Court’s refusal to quash a Section 498A IPC case filed by his sister-in-law (complainant).

The complainant had accused her estranged husband (the appellant's brother), her mother-in-law and her brother-in-law (appellant) of subjecting her to dowry-related harassment.

The case registered against the accused cited charges under Sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily hurt) and 498A (cruelty by husband or relatives to married woman) of the IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.

The complainant claimed that due to continuous harassment from her husband and in-laws, she suffered a burst vein in her brain, resulting in paralysis of her right hand and right leg.

The woman's husband and his family approached the Allahabad High Court seeking to quash this case. However, the High Court refused to quash the case, prompting the appellant (the woman's brother-in-law) to approach the Supreme Court.

On September 24, the Court granted him relief and quashed the case, noting that the complainant had only levelled vague allegations of harassment without any specific details.

"The FIR lacks concrete and precise allegations," Court said.

The Court added that the complainant also failed to demonstrate any link between the alleged harassment and the nerve damage she sustained.

"The term 'cruelty' cannot be established without specific instances. The tendency of invoking the aforesaid provisions, without mentioning any specific detail, weakens the case of the prosecution and casts serious aspersions on the probability of the version of the complainant. Therefore, this Court cannot ignore the missing specifics in the FIR which is the basic premise for invoking the criminal machinery of the State," Court added.

Accordingly, the Court set aside the Allahabad High Court’s order, and quashed the criminal case against the appellant.

Advocates Saurabh Soni, Maneesh Saxena, Anupam Singh and Mannat Singh appeared for the appellant.

Advocates Vijendra Singh, Vikas Bansal, Apurva Singh, Devesh Kumar Mishra and Vasasntha Kumar appeared for respondents (State and complainant).

[Read Judgement]