Harassment of wife by distant relatives also held them liable

The argument alleged by the applicant is the husband that since the in-laws and other relatives are not residing with the couple so the allegations raised by the respondent regarding cruelty and harassment of her can not be considered true but the High Court refused to accept it. 

Also, the court gave a wider description of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. 

And this section talks about the husband or the relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such women to cruelty shall be pun­ished with imprisonment for a term which is liable for a fine and may extend to three years.

Harassment by husband and his relatives

Section 498A is diluted by the recent verdict of the Supreme Court which only serves to add one or more layers of structural barriers to the aggrieved women accessing justice. 

The First Information Report (FIR) which was lodged against the relatives of the husband under Section 498A case is refused to get quashed recently by the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court which says that many a time, relatives living in distant places also meddle in the affairs of a couple and harass the wife [Rajesh Himmat Pundkar vs the State of Maharashtra].

The petition filed by the husband, his parents, and siblings was heard by the division bench of Justices Sunil Shukre and Govind Sanap to seek a quash in lodging the FIR against them.

The accused pointed out that while the husband lived in Akola district, his parents and a married sister were residing in Amravati district and his younger brother hailed from Pune City. 

The argument raised by the rest of the applicants is that they didn’t live with the applicant that is the husband and they are his in-laws or relatives thus the allegations cannot be considered true. 

On June 8, 2022, an order was passed by the court in which it refused to take the argument on two counts. 

Firstly, the presumption of law is not that a distant living relative is always innocent unless it is proved otherwise. 

A relative staying at a distance from the husband and wife can and has been seen in affairs of the married couples meddling and that also is nature to such an extent leads to the real harassment. 

This was held by the Judges in the first count of the case. 

Secondly, the bench said that the probe in the case was still going on and more material could come to light upon further investigation. 

The court found that the allegations made by the wife of the complainant against all the applicants are specific and to test their genuineness is only possible at the trial stage but not at the stage of the investigation. 

Therefore, just because the remaining applicants are not residing along with the husband and the wife, it cannot be said that the allegations made against the in-laws do not disclose any offense,” the bench added. 

The couple got married in 2007 and they have three children. However, in 2017, the wife learned that the husband was having an extramarital affair. 

On confronting him, he assaulted her. As far as the in-laws are concerned, the wife alleged in her FIR that when she informed her husband’s parents and siblings about his extramarital affair, they instead of controlling his conduct started abusing her. 

The in-laws also demanded the amount of dowry which is ₹50,0000. The bench underlined the specific role which is attributed to all the accused in this case from the contentions noted in the FIR. 

It held that no vague or general omnibus statements had been made against the in-laws, thus making out a prima facie case against them. Given this, the Court refused to quash the FIR. 

Advocate AB Moon appeared for the husband and his relatives, while the state and the wife were represented by additional public prosecutor I J Damle and advocate Kirti Satpute, respectively.