Number Of Marriages Contracted By A Woman Cannot By Itself Discredit Her Criminal Complaint Against Husband: Karnataka High Court

The High Court, however, quashed the proceedings after finding that the essential ingredients of the alleged offences were not disclosed.

The Court was hearing a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking to quash a charge sheet for offences under Sections 498A, 323, 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. The police had proceeded only against the husband.

A Bench of Justice M. Nagaprasanna observed: “The criminal law cannot be permitted to become a convenient instrument for the enforcement of private demands. Equally, a person's matrimonial history, however unusual it may appear, cannot by itself furnish a legal foundation for disbelieving an allegation of criminal wrongdoing. It is the existence or absence of the ingredients of the alleged offences, viewed in the setting of the attendant circumstances, that must govern the exercise of jurisdiction by this Court.”

The Court further observed: “This Court is conscious that the number of marriages contracted by a person cannot, by itself, constitute an indictment of character or furnish a presumption of criminal misconduct. Nor can the institution of criminal proceedings by a woman against her former husbands, without more, render a subsequent complaint unworthy of consideration. Every complaint must stand or fall upon its own allegations and the material supporting them. The past conduct relied upon by the petitioner may provide context, but cannot replace the statutory requirement of examining whether the offences alleged are prima facie disclosed.”

Advocate Parameswarappa C. appeared for the petitioner. High Court Government Pleader K. Nageshwarappa represented the State, while Advocate Haleema Ameen appeared for the complainant.

Background

The parties married in 2022, but their relationship deteriorated shortly afterwards. The complainant alleged that the husband and his family demanded money, verbally abused her, assaulted her while she was pregnant and threatened to kill her. The police filed a charge sheet against the husband.

The husband contended that the complaint was intended to compel him to meet a monetary demand. He relied on documents that, according to him, disclosed nine successive marriages, matrimonial disputes, criminal proceedings and settlements involving the complainant.

The complainant disputed the authenticity of several marriage certificates and photographs, describing them as fabricated or morphed. While acknowledging some earlier marriages, she maintained that each had followed a divorce or other lawful dissolution and that there was no overlap. She argued that the material disclosed cruelty arising from a demand for money and that the prosecution should continue.

Court’s Observations

Statutory Ingredients Could Not Be Replaced By Labels

The Court explained that criminal cruelty under Section 498A of the IPC required conduct likely to drive a woman to suicide or cause grave injury or danger to her life, limb or health, or harassment intended to coerce an unlawful demand for property or valuable security. Ordinary matrimonial disagreement or conduct that might support matrimonial relief did not automatically meet that threshold.

The Court held: “What emerges is that the mere use of the expressions 'cruelty', 'harassment' or 'dowry demand' cannot, by the magic of nomenclature, constitute an offence under Section 498A of the IPC. The complaint must disclose the factual foundation upon which the statutory ingredients can reasonably be inferred. Criminal culpability cannot rest upon adjectives bereft of particulars. The law requires allegations of conduct, not merely conclusions about conduct.”

Referring to Usha Chakraborty v. State of West Bengal (2023), the Court noted that an offence of voluntarily causing hurt required both the causation of hurt and its voluntary infliction. It found that the complaint and charge sheet did not provide the necessary particulars to sustain that offence either.

Charge Sheet Could Not Cure A Deficient Accusation

The Court found that the allegations were sweeping and omnibus. It said that the material did not disclose conduct satisfying the statutory definition of cruelty, a particularised voluntary infliction of hurt, or a specific factual basis for intentional insult or criminal intimidation.

The Court observed: “The filing of a charge sheet cannot breathe life into an accusation which, even upon acceptance at its face value, fails to disclose the essential ingredients of a criminal offence. Investigation may collect evidence in support of an allegation; it cannot dispense with the necessity of an allegation disclosing criminality in the first place.”

The Court relied on Dr. Lokesh B.H. v. State of Karnataka (2026), Prasanta Kumar Dhar v. State of West Bengal (2026) and Dara Lakshmi Narayana v. State of Telangana (2025) while distinguishing genuine cruelty from vague accusations.

Matrimonial History Was Context, Not Proof

The Court did not accept that the alleged number of marriages or earlier proceedings could establish that the present complaint was false. It observed that the authenticity and legal effect of the documents relied upon by the husband had to be considered cautiously.

The Court said: “The legal consequence of these documents must depend upon their authenticity, their relevance to the accusations in the present proceedings and the extent to which they are undisputed. Nevertheless, the complaint and the charge sheet must independently withstand scrutiny on the touchstone of the ingredients of the offences alleged.”

It ultimately found that the surrounding circumstances lent significance to the husband’s allegation of a collateral purpose. However, interference was justified by the absence of the essential ingredients of the offences when read with those circumstances, not by the complainant’s matrimonial history alone.

Inherent Jurisdiction Prevented Abuse Of Process

Referring to Sajal Bose v. State of West Bengal (2026), Pradeep Kumar Kesarwani v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2025) and Rajiv Thapar v. Madan Lal Kapoor (2013), the Court applied the principles governing the quashing of criminal proceedings.

The Court clarified: “The object of such intervention is not to undertake a premature trial or adjudicate disputed questions of fact, but to prevent the criminal process from being employed, where its continuation is demonstrably unjustified.”

It concluded that forcing the husband to face trial despite the absence of the foundational ingredients of the alleged offences would amount to an abuse of process and a miscarriage of justice.

Conclusion

The High Court allowed the petition and quashed the criminal proceedings against the husband. It held that the prosecution could not continue merely because a complaint had been registered and followed by a charge sheet when the allegations, even taken at face value, did not disclose the alleged offences.

Cause Title: RH v. State & Another

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