Case Name: DIGAMBAR AND ANR v. THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND ANR
Today, December 20, the Supreme Court dismissed a domestic cruelty complaint against the husband’s parents under Section 498A IPC. The lawsuit was filed with the daughter-in-law’s secret intention of coercing their son into agreeing to a divorce. According to the court, “these facts lead us to conclude that the proceedings were initiated with an ulterior motive to press the appellant’s son to consent to the divorce according to the terms of the complainant and that the complainant used the proceedings as a weapon in the personal tension between the couple.”
The appellant’s challenge to the Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad Bench ruling, which declined to dismiss the criminal case against the appellants, was being heard by the bench, which included Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan. The Complainant claimed that by making her eat tainted food, her husband’s parents (Appellants) were responsible for her miscarriage. She further claimed that the appellants had been harsh to her physically and mentally because she had not had a male child. In addition to 498A, there were also allegations of violations of Sections 312/313 of the Indian Penal Code (causing miscarriage).
Nevertheless, the police were only notified of the miscarriage and cruelty two years after the fact, and there was no proof that the appellants were aware of the complainant’s pregnancy or that they had given her any drugs that would have caused the miscarriage. The opinion, written by Justice Gavai, overturned the High Court’s ruling and stressed that cruelty would not be considered a crime unless it was “done with the intention to cause grave injury or drive the victim to commit suicide or inflict grave injury to herself.”
The Court noted that the accusations made against the appellants lacked specifics of acts of cruelty or misbehavior and were ambiguous and general. “The accusations made in the FIR in this instance do not demonstrate the existence of any such charges. The court stated, “There is no specific allegation of any injury being caused by the appellants herein. The only allegation that referred to an injury being inflicted against the complainant is a vague statement that the appellants’ son used to beat her.”
The Court questioned the complainant’s motivation for excluding the specifics of the cruelty or miscarriage offense from the divorce proceedings she started. The court said that the roughly two-year delay in filing the FIR cast suspicion on the complainant’s intentions. The FIR was filed as a retaliatory effort to put pressure on the appellants’ son during the divorce proceedings, the court deduced. The recent ruling in Dara Lakshmi Narayana and Others vs. State of Telangana, which raised concerns over the abuse of Section 498A, was referenced in the ruling. Jayedeepsinh Pravinsinh Chavda and Others v. State of Gujarat, which addressed the components of Section 498A, was also cited.
According to the Court, “cruelty” alone does not qualify as an offense under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. “It must be done with the intention to cause grave injury or drive the victim to commit suicide or inflict grave injury to herself,” the judge stated. In light of this, the appeal was granted, and the ongoing case was dismissed.