HC flags misuse of woman harassment law due to lack of grievance forums

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that absence of family or social forums for addressing matrimonial grievances was leaving the wives with no option but to resort to criminal proceedings under Section 498-A of the IPC.

Justice Sumeet Goel asserted such proceedings in more than a few cases were initiated as means to resolve matrimonial disputes or seek a settlement, and not purely for legal redress. The observations are significant as they imply misuse of provisions related to matrimonial harassment as women often resort to them in the absence of alternative grievance redressal mechanisms to address acrimonious marital disputes.

Justice Goel asserted the courts were flooded with cases where it was found that the complainant-wife had misused the provision of Section 498-A of the IPC on subjecting a married woman to cruelty to settle scores with her husband and his family. But, at the same time, it could not be ignored that such allegations of dowry harassment levelled by the wife turn out to be true in several cases.

The court could also not also lose sight of “growing lack of a family level/social forum” for redressal of grievances of a wife arising out of matrimonial acrimony. As such, criminal proceedings under Section 498-A were launched at the instance of such wives on being left with no other alternative redressal forum.

“In many cases, the wife tends to initiate criminal proceedings under Section 498-A of the IPC against her husband, as also his relatives, as a means of a solution seeking redressal mechanism. In other words, in large number of cases, the criminal prosecution under Section 498-A of the IPC at the instance of a disgruntled wife is launched for settlement of the matrimonial discord in one way or the other,” Justice Goel asserted.

The Bench, during the course of hearing, was told a decree of divorce had been passed between the petitioner-husband and aggrieved-wife by a circuit court in Virginia, USA, in June 2015. The petitioner’s counsel submitted that nothing survived between the parties as per the final decree of divorce passed by the US court. As such, the aggrieved-wife’s complainant mother should have withdrawn the criminal prosecution in all fairness.

Before parting with the judgment, Justice Goel quashed the criminal complaint pending before a Jalandhar court against the husband and other petitioners, along with summoning order and another order by Jalandhar Additional Sessions Judge dismissing their revision plea. The complainant — aggrieved wife’s mother — was saddled with Rs 25,000 costs.