Supreme Court criticises trend of indicting in-laws in dowry harassment cases

There is a growing trend of dowry victims arraigning the relatives of the husband, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said, and quashed a dowry harassment case against a woman’s parents-in-law.

For a bench comprising Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Prashant Kumar Mishra, it appeared there were “omnibus and general allegations” against the woman’s sister-in-law, husband and father-in-law.

The top court, however, observed the allegation of any physical torture by the appellants was missing.

“The allegation is only a taunt and a statement that they are highly placed having political influence and connections with ministers as such they instigated accused 1 (husband) to accused 3 (husband’s parents) to pressurise the de-facto complainant to get an additional dowry,” it said.

The order added, “Considering the growing trend of dowry victims arraigning the relatives of the husband, this court has deprecated the practice involving the relatives of the husband for the offence under Section 498A IPC and Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.”

Referring to its decisions, the bench said it had reiterated and deprecated the practice of involving the relatives of the husband in dowry-related matters.

In this case, the marriage between the complainant and her husband took place at Guntur, Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

Five months into the marriage, the woman left her husband and started living with her parents. She went back to her matrimonial home but returned to her parents eventually. The husband sent a legal notice to her followed by a petition for restitution of conjugal rights in 2015.

During the pendency of this proceeding, she lodged a complaint before the police in 2016. However, a compromise was arrived at and the husband withdrew the case. She subsequently left for the US without intimating the husband or his family members and the dispute continued.

The husband filed a petition for dissolution of marriage on June 21, 2016 and, as a counterblast, she again lodged a police complaint against six accused persons, including the present appellants.