In an interesting ruling, a court in Delhi has discharged a husband and his family members from charges of cruelty and sexual harassment, saying the "gravest" allegations were made to seek vengeance instead of justice.
The decision came when Judicial Magistrate Shruti Sharma was hearing a plea filed by a woman who had lodged a case alleging physical, mental and sexual cruelty, besides repeated demands of dowry.
In an order dated August 14, the court said, "It appears that the complainant has exaggerated actual facts and attempted to strengthen her case by levelling the gravest of allegations against all members of her husband's family." It said this was further substantiated by the fact that a total of seven family members, including the husband, had been implicated, and there were two male relatives against whom allegations of sexual assault were made.
"The sweeping nature of these allegations, particularly the trend of implicating all male members under serious offences such as IPC Sections 498A (cruelty to a married woman by her husband or his relatives) and 354 (assault or criminal force to a woman with intent to outrage her modesty) points towards a misuse of legal provisions," the court said.
Discharging all accused persons, it said that the complainant appeared to have "approached the court not with a bona fide intent to seek justice, but rather with malice, seeking vengeance instead of equitable relief".The court underlined that the cruelty inflicted on a woman, as per legal provisions, had to be "so grave" that it endangered her life or provoked her to take the extreme step of taking her life.
It, however, noted that in the complaint, the woman had admitted that despite sleeping in same room, her husband did not speak with her, which the court said reasonably established that the marriage had fallen apart irretrievably and the complainant opted to "invoke the protective provisions of criminal law not to seek redressal for genuine cruelty, but to settle personal scores and to criminalise what appeared to be a breakdown of the marital relationship".
"Marriages fail for several reasons; however, giving matrimonial disputes a colour of a criminal offence is a far-stretched interpretation of offence under Section 498A, which is not in consonance with the intention of the legislature," the court said.
It said the cruelty allegations against the husband were "prima facie dubious, unsubstantiated, and actuated by malice", while there were no substantive allegations against the in-laws.
Regarding the allegations of outraging the woman's modesty against her brother-in-law, the court said that it appeared to be an "afterthought" and an attempt to implicate him.
On allegations of sexual harassment against the father-in-law, it said, "The casual use of an extremely serious allegation like attempt to rape, without any supporting detail or step taken to seek protection or report it to authorities, undermines not only the credibility of the complainant's case, but also the integrity of real victims who bear the trauma and social stigma of such offences. In these circumstances, where allegations are vague, general, inconsistent, and unsupported, no grave suspicion arises."
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