Monetary And Financial Dominance Of Husband Cannot Qualify As Cruelty: Supreme Court Quashes Criminal Proceedings U/S. 498A IPC

The Court said that the allegation that the husband forced his wife to maintain an Excel sheet of all the expenses cannot come under the definition of cruelty.

​The Bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice R Mahadevan observed, “In our view, they reflect the daily wear and tear of marriage and can, in no way, be categorised as cruelty. The act of the accused-appellant of sending money back to his family members cannot be misconstrued in a way that leads to a criminal prosecution. The allegation that the accused-appellant forced the complainant-respondent No.2 to maintain an Excel sheet of all the expenses, even if taken on the face value, cannot come under the definition of cruelty. The monetary and financial dominance of the accused-appellant, as alleged by the complainant-respondent No.2, cannot qualify as an instance of cruelty, especially in the absence of any tangible mental or physical harm caused. The said situation is a mirror reflection of the Indian society where men of the households often try to dominate and take charge of the finances of the women but criminal litigation cannot become a gateway or a tool to settle scores and pursue personal vendettas.”

AOR SS Jauhar appeared for the Accused-husband, whereas Senior Advocate Madhavi Divan and AOR Devina Sehgal appeared for the Respondents.

Background

An appeal was filed assailing the judgment and order passed by the Telangana High Court dismissing the criminal petition filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (‘CrPC’), filed by the Accused-husband seeking quashing of an FIR registered under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 (‘DP Act’) against the Accused-husband.

Respondent No. 2, the Complainant, filed the above-mentioned FIR against her husband, i.e. Appellant-Accused, her father-in-law, her brothers-in-law and her sisters-in-law. Due to matrimonial discord, the Complainant-wife, with her minor son, moved to India and later on filed a complaint against the Accused-husband and his family members. She alleged that the Accused-husband and his family members physically and mentally harassed her with demands of dowry to repay their family loans and debts.

Contention of the Parties

The Accused-husband contended that the FIR consists of vague, sweeping, and unsubstantiated allegations that fail to satisfy the legal definition of dowry harassment under Section 498A of the IPC. It was argued that the incidents described are merely the "ordinary wear and tear" of a marriage and do not amount to criminal cruelty. Furthermore, he submitted that the proceedings are a malicious "counterblast" to the Accused-husband’s legal notice, initiated solely out of vengeance to vex his family. Finally, it was emphasized that all other family members named in the complaint have already been exonerated by the High Court.

On the contrary, the Complainant-wife submitted that the Accused-husband exerted extreme financial coercion by forcing the complainant to maintain detailed spreadsheets of her expenditures and transferring her funds into his own account to strip her of financial independence. Furthermore, it was contended that there was a lack of support during her pregnancy and subsequent postpartum period, during which she was subjected to constant insults and body-shaming rather than essential care.

Observation of the Court

The Court observed, “Furthermore, the other allegations of the complainant-respondent No. 2 such as lack of care on the part of the husband-the accused-appellant during pregnancy and postpartum and constant taunts about her after- birth weight, if accepted prima facie, at best reflect poorly upon the character of the accused-appellant but the same cannot amount to cruelty so as to make him suffer through the process of litigation.”

It was also reiterated that the courts have to be cautious in dealing with complaints and must take a pragmatic reality into consideration while dealing with matrimonial cases, where the allegations have to be scrutinized with greater care and circumspection in order to prevent miscarriage of justice and abuse of the process of law.

“Merely stating that the accused-appellant has mentally harassed the complainant- respondent No.2 with respect to a demand of dowry does not fulfil the ingredients of Section 498A of the IPC especially in the face of absence of any cogent material or evidence on record to substantiate the said allegations. The term “cruelty” cannot be established without specific instances. The tendency of invoking these sections, without mentioning any specific details, weakens the case of prosecution and casts serious aspersions on the viability of the version of the complainant. Therefore, this Court cannot ignore the missing specifics in an FIR which is the premise of invoking the criminal machinery of the State. In such cases involving allegations of cruelty and harassment, there would normally be a series of offending acts, which would be required to be spelt out by the complainant against perpetrators in specific terms to involve such perpetrators into the criminal proceedings sought to be initiated against them and therefore mere general allegations of harassment without pointing out the specifics against such persons would not be sufficient to continue criminal proceedings.”, the Court said.

Conclusion

While applying the principles laid down in the landmark judgment of the Apex Court in State of Haryana vs. Bhajan Lal, 1992 SC, the Court concluded that the allegations of cruelty, mental harassment, and voluntarily causing hurt against the accused-appellant herein have been made with a mala fide intent with vague and general allegations.

Accordingly, the appeal was allowed, and the criminal proceedings against the Accused-Husband were quashed.

Cause Title: XXXX v. State of Telangana and Anr. [Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1471]

Appearances:

Appellant: AOR S. S. Jauhar, Advocates Prabhjit Jauhar and Chahat Raghav.

Respondents: Senior Advocate Madhavi Divan, AORs Devina Sehgal and Megha Karnwal, Advocates Yatharth Kansal, Surya Prakash, Abhishek Tiwari and Anurag Mishra.

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