Only husband, in-laws can be booked for cruelty against woman, says HC

The Bombay high court on Monday said only a complainant’s husband and his relatives can be booked under Section 498A for subjecting a married woman to cruelty. The court had been hearing a case filed by a Beed woman against her husband and a 27-year-old Thane woman, who claimed to be having an affair with the complainant’s husband.

All three of them are doctors. The Thane woman approached the HC after the Beed city police station registered a case against her and the husband.

“Section 498A of the IPC cannot be invoked against the applicant, since she is not a relative of the husband of the complainant,” said the division bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice Sangitrao Patil.

The complainant said that in December 2015, the Thane woman came to her husband’s clinic and said she was to be married to him. When the complainant asked her husband about the woman, he beat her up and asked her to leave the house. This happened again in May, which compelled her to approach the police.

The Beed police booked the Thanewomanandthemanunder section 498A and other provisions of the IPC. Section 498-A of the IPC prescribes punishment extending to three years and fine to “the husband or the relative of the husband of a married woman,” if they subject her to cruelty.

The HC concluded that except for making casual references, the complainant had not attributed any specific overt acts to the 27-year-old doctor.

The bench, therefore, struck down the prosecution while saying that allowing it to continue would amount to abuse of the process of law.