New Delhi: The custody of the child being with the husband can’t be the sole ground to allege cruelty or harassment in a marriage, Delhi High Court said recently. It ended the criminal proceedings lodged by a woman against her husband and in-laws.The court found the case to be one of misuse of dowry harassment and cruelty provisions, which were slapped against the husband and his parents just because he sought a divorce. “The matrimonial differences led to the separation, and the custody of the child was with the husband and the petitioners (his parents). However, merely because the child was in the custody of the husband after disputes inter se arose, cannot be equated with cruelty or harassment as envisaged under Section 498A IPC,” Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said.Further stating that essential ingredients to attract 498A of the IPC were missing, the court quashed the FIR and chargesheet.“Experience over past so many years has shown that while in some cases it may have been really successful in dealing with the situation and also address issues of dowry demands to some extent, but in many of the reported cases, it has been found to be used as a mean and an arm-twisting tactic to settle the other dispute which may arise in the matrimonial relationship. It has become an easy tool in the hands of the complainants to settle the scores by getting false FIRs registered containing the exaggerated and manipulated allegations,” the court added.The court further observed that the matrimonial relationship did not work out well between the husband and wife. However, “in order to bring the petitioners to their knees and to concede to the expectations of the complainant, the present FIR has been registered.”According to the petition, the couple got married in 2007, but soon the wife’s behaviour became worse day by day as she was becoming more aggressive and uncontrollable, even against the child born of the union. When the husband later sought a divorce, the wife responded by registering a dowry harassment case against his family.
