Section 498A does not cover all acts of cruelty: High Court

Not every instance of harassment or cruelty meted out to a married woman at her matrimonial home is covered under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Bombay HC said, while striking down a prosecution order passed by a judicial magistrate at Malshiras, Solapur, in Mar 2017 against a man & his family.

The court observed that the acts alleged by the litigant in the case were “singular” & “isolated” in nature. The Deshmukhs had approached High Court, challenging the magisterial order on the ground that the allegations, even if taken to be true, didn't constitute ‘offence’ under section 498A.

Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code prescribes punishment for a woman’s husband or his relative for subjecting her to cruelty.

Justice AM Badar, while hearing the case, said the bare perusal of definition of the term “cruelty” in section 498A makes it clear that it implies harsh & harmful conduct with certain intensity & persistence. According to him, the section covers acts causing physical & mental agony as well as torture. However, the litigant must show she was subjected to unbearable & repeated acts of brutality, the court said. “It must be shown that the acts were of such a nature were sufficient for causing a married woman to lose her normal frame of mind.

” Justice Badar accepted the family’s contention after noticing that no act of harassment was attributed to two of the five applicants. Two others were accused of assaulting the complainant woman by kicks & fist blows & demanded that she divorce her husband at the earliest. The fifth person was accused of “harassing her for not cooking well.” The judge found the acts by the family member were inadequate to attract the section 498A. “[An] Isolated singular act of beating doesn't fulfil the requirement of legal cruelty which implies harsh & harmful conduct of such a nature so as to drive a woman to commit suicide or to cause injury or danger to her life, limb,” said the judge.

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