Police Machinery Can’t Be Utilised To Hold Husband At Ransom: Gujarat HC [Read Order]

Every matrimonial conduct, which may cause annoyance to the other, may not amount to cruelty, the court observed.

The police machinery cannot be utilized for the purpose of holding the husband at ransom so that he could be squeezed by the wife at the instigation of her parents or relatives or friends, observed the High Court of Gujarat while quashing a case against the husband filed by his wife.

The husband had approached the high court seeking to quash FIR filed against him by his wife for the offence punishable under sections 498A, 506(2) and 294B read with 114 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3 and 7 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.

Perusing the complaint, Justice JB Pardiwala remarked: “The case appears to be one of a serious maladjustment in the marital life. The wife, as usual, has levelled wild and reckless allegations of harassment and cruelty not only against the husband, but even against the father-in-law and mother-in-law. The allegations do not inspire any confidence worth the name. In my view, continuation of the criminal proceedings will be nothing, but an abuse of the process of law.”

The judge further observed that, if the court is convinced by the fact that the involvement by the complainant of all close relatives of the husband, including the husband is with an oblique motive, then even if the FIR and the charge sheet disclose commission of a cognizable offence, the court, with a view to doing substantial justice, should read in between the lines the oblique motive of the complainant and take a pragmatic view of the matter.

“The first thing that comes in the mind of the wife, her parents and her relatives is the police, as if the police is the panacea of all evil. No sooner the matter reaches the police, then even if there are fair chances of reconciliation between the spouses, they would get destroyed,” the court said.

The court also observed that in matrimonial disputes the main sufferers are the children. The judge said: “The spouses fight with such venom in their heart that they do not think even for a second that if the marriage would come to an end, then what will be the effect on their children. Divorce plays a very dubious role so far as the upbringing of the children is concerned.”