Section 498A IPC: Supreme Court reduces convicted husband's jail term after wife expresses desire to revive marriage

A husband convicted for cruelty to his wife, had his sentence reduced by the Supreme Court from six months imprisonment to the period already spent in jail, after the complainant-wife expressed her desire to revive their marriage [Randeep Singh vs Chandigarh UT and anr]..A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Vikram Nath noted that it could not pass any order on the wife's decision to revive her matrimonial life with her convicted husband since the Court was hearing an appeal filed against his conviction. However, in view of the overall circumstances, it reduced the jail term of the appellant-husband. "In course of hearing today, learned counsel for the complainant-wife has submitted before us that ... she wants to join her husband i.e., the appellant and revive their matrimonial life. In this proceeding, we cannot pass any order on that count. For that purpose, the respondent-wife may take such steps as may be advised. Considering the overall circumstances, we, however, reduce the punishment of rigorous imprisonment to the period already undergone by the appellant in incarceration.".By way of background, the Punjab & Haryana High Court had, in 2019, upheld a trial court's conviction of the husband under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. However, it reduced the sentence from two years to six months. The husband had then moved the Supreme Court against his conviction. "The High Court, in its Revisional jurisdiction did not interfere with the judgment of conviction but reduced the substantive sentence to six months. As there are concurrent findings of fact, we do not find any reason to interfere with the judgment of conviction of the appellant. There is no perversity in the judgment assailed in this appeal," the Court said.The Court then noted the wife's submission that she would not like to contest the appeal and she wants to join her husband i.e., the appellant and revive their matrimonial life.The Court, however, said that it cannot pass any order with regard to the same in the proceedings before it but reduced the sentence of imprisonment of the husband.Advocates JP Dhanda, NA Usmani, and Raj Rani Dhanda appeared for the husband. Advocates Vatsal Joshi, SK Singhania, Vinayak Sharma, Krishna Kant Dubey, Nakul Chengappa KK, Akriti A Manubarwala, Sarad Singhania, Arun Kumar Yadav, N Visakamurthy, Gurmeet Singh Makker, and Chritarth Palli appeared for the respondents. [Read order]