Wife’s complaint of dowry harassment can’t be quashed merely because it was after divorce notice from husband: Karnataka HC

The laws enacted to protect women from dowry harassment and domestic violence cannot be rendered illusory by declaring that the complaint of the wife will lose its significance for the reason that it is registered soon after the receipt of notice of divorce from the husband, the High Court of Karnataka has said.

The laws enacted to protect women from dowry harassment and domestic violence cannot be rendered illusory by declaring that the complaint of the wife will lose its significance for the reason that it is registered soon after the receipt of notice of divorce from the husband, the High Court of Karnataka has said.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while refusing to accept the argument made on behalf of a petitioner-husband to quash the dowry harassment case based on an earlier judgement of a coordinated Bench of the court in a similar case.

The petitioner, Pramod R.S., had sought the quashing of the dowry harassment complaint lodged by his wife while pointing out that the judge in High Court’s Kalaburagi Bench had on April 18, 2023, quashed the wife’s complaint by observing that “dowry harassment complaint against the husband and in-laws loses its significance in case the complaint is made after receiving the divorce notice from her husband”.

However, Justice Nagaprasanna said, “The decision of the coordinate Bench holding that criminal case filed by the wife in respect of cruelty and dowry harassment against the husband and in-laws would lose any significance in case the complaint is made after receiving the divorce notice from the husband, defeats the very object of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, or even complaints made under Section 12 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.”

If the hyper-technical contention that the complaint would lose significance if it is filed after receipt of divorce notice from the husband is accepted, then it would act against the interests of women and the object for which Section 498A was introduced in the IPC to prevent torture to a woman by her husband or by the relatives of the husband, observed Justice Nagaprasanna.

Justice Nagaprasanna also made it clear that the observation of the coordinate Bench can, at best, be held to be applicable and restrictable to the facts of that particular case.