Karnataka High Court
Credit: DH File Photo
Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has quashed a dowry harassment FIR against a man, his parents and brother, observing that IPC Section 498A is not a panacea for all matrimonial ills.
The complaint covers incidents from 2017 to 2024, most of which have happened in the US, where the husband had lived with the complainant wife.
“What is more disquieting is, the indiscriminating roping in of the parents-in-law and brother-in-law, despite their residence in India, while the marital life was largely lived abroad,” Justice M Nagaprasanna said.
The couple married on August 25, 2017, and relocated to San Antonio, Texas, US.
Six years later, in January 2023, the wife returned to India and filed a complaint at the Basavanagudi women police station. Police registered an FIR under IPC sections 498A and 504 as well as sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act against the husband, the parents-in-law and brother-in-law.
The family moved the high court, contending that the couple had minor issues that would happen in a marriage. Six years after the marriage, she alleged that the husband and other members of the family had harassed her over telephone. They further submitted that a lookout circular was also issued against the husband, stopping him from moving beyond the shores of the nation.
After perusing the complaint, Justice Nagaprasanna noted that it revealed grievances such as dietary restrictions, expectations regarding attire, allocation of household responsibilities, and disagreements over television preferences, laced with a statement that the husband treated the complainant wife as his servant.
“These allegations, even if accepted at face value, portray a portrait of marital discord, but fall woefully short of depicting the statutory cruelty contemplated under Section 498A of the IPC,” the court said.
The court also noted that the allegations in the complaint, minor skirmishes that happen in the family between the husband and the wife are projected to become a crime for offences punishable under IPC section 498A or even under section 504.
“The law does not criminalise incompatibility, nor does it punish imperfect marriages. Section 498A of the IPC is not a panacea for all matrimonial ills. It is a targeted provision meant to address grave cruelty, conduct so willful and pernicious so as to imperil life, limb or mental health or even harassment tethered to unlawful demands of dowry. This is the purport of the provision 498A,” Justice Nagaprasanna said.
The court further said, “The issuance of a lookout circular against the 1st petitioner (husband), on allegations so tenuous, would only compound injustice. Therefore, to permit the criminal process to lumber forward would be to allow law to become a weapon rather than a remedy.”