Bombay High Court throws out woman’s abuse case against husband’s family

Allegations of illtreatment by a man against his own family members do not fall under the ambit of cruelty against a woman in her matrimonial home the Bombay High Court has saidThe HC made the observation in an order dated July 18 a copy of which was made available on Monday while quashing a March 2013 FIR first information report lodged by a woman against her parentsinlaw brother and sistersinlaw mdashresidents of Mumbai mdash alleging cruelty and harassmentA division bench in the order noted that peculiarly the woman did not make any allegations against her husband and described the entire case as nothing but a ldquocomplete abuse of the process of lawrdquo and the Indian Penal Code IPC section related to cruelty to women in matrimonial homeThe bench of Justice A S Gadkari and Justice Neela Gokhale maintained the FIR was a ldquoproxy litigationrdquo lodged by the man through his wife against his own family members to settle a property disputeThe court noted this was a ldquopeculiar caserdquo where the woman has alleged her inlaws of committing an offence under section 498A of the IPC without a single allegation against her husbandSection 498A pertains to harassment of a woman by her husband or any relative of the husbandThe court in its order said the allegations of harassment and cruelty made by the woman against the petitioners are ldquoquite general and vaguerdquoldquoUndoubtedly she the complainant woman has given a list of incidents of cruelty in the FIR However the instances are also of a nature that do not fulfil the ingredients of section 498A of the IPCrdquo the HC observedSome of the alleged illtreatment is aimed against the husband and not even the complainant herself the bench pointed outldquoAllegations of illtreatment by a man against his own family members do not fall within the scope and ambit of section 498A of the IPCrdquo the court clarifiedThe woman in her complaint had alleged her inlaws used to pick fights with her husband on petty issues to drive him and her out of the houseShe further claimed her inlaws did not allow her to use their kitchen appliances barred her from accessing their residencersquos terrace and garden and would ask the domestic help not to do her household work The court said the present case was a ldquocomplete abuse of the process of lawrdquoldquoThe FIR is nothing but a shot fired by the man from his wifersquos shoulder to espouse his own cause of his interest in his fatherrsquos property We thus have no hesitation in holding that the FIR is filed with an ulterior motive for wreaking personal vengeance on the petitionersrdquo it maintained The judges were critical of the gross abuse of IPC section 498AThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever