In a significant proceeding under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Calcutta High Court stepped in to scrutinize a criminal case lodged against an elderly couple, a 67 year old heart surgery survivor and his 61 year old wife recovering from knee replacement surgery, who had been arraigned as accused in a dowry harassment complaint filed by their daughter-in-law barely months after the wedding. The court closely examined whether the charges under Sections 498A, 406, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, read with the Dowry Prohibition Act, could withstand legal scrutiny against individuals whose medical conditions made the very allegations against them appear improbable, promising a finding that would cut to the heart of how courts must treat omnibus allegations in matrimonial disputes.
The controversy began in November 2022, when Jyothi Bala Nath lodged a complaint before the Jadavpur Police Station alleging physical and mental torture, unlawful demands, criminal intimidation, and misappropriation of her Stridhan articles by her husband and in-laws, a marriage that had taken place only in March 2022. The charge sheet was filed against the petitioners, the in-laws, after the investigating officer accepted her version and excluded three other accused for lack of evidence.
Counsel for the petitioner, Senior Advocate Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, argued forcefully that the complaint was a calculated counterblast to earlier complaints filed by the in-laws themselves, pointing to medical records showing the father-in-law had undergone a four-vessel coronary artery bypass surgery in August 2022 and the mother-in-law had been hospitalised following knee replacement surgery in May 2022, periods during which they were physically incapacitated and yet allegedly inflicting bodily harm.
Counsel for the complainant countered that the torture was witnessed by a security guard, that demands of Rs.10 lakhs had been made, and that the petitioners had even pressured her to abort her pregnancy, urging the court to let the matter proceed to trial where inconsistencies could be tested.
The Court was unpersuaded. After a threadbare examination of the complaint, the charge sheet, the rival medical records, and the sequence of counter-complaints filed by both sides, the Judge found that the allegations against the in-laws were conspicuously vague and lacked any specific dates, incidents, or overt acts attributable to them individually. Relying heavily on the Supreme Court's ruling in Achin Gupta v. State of Haryana and Ghanshyam Soni v. State (NCT of Delhi), the court noted that "mere casual reference of the names of the family members in a matrimonial dispute, without allegation of active involvement in the matter would not justify taking cognizance against them."
On the physical assault allegations, the court observed it was "highly improbable and beyond reasonable imagination" that two post-operative patients could have assaulted their daughter-in-law during their recovery periods. The court further found that the charges under Sections 406 and 506 IPC equally failed, the Stridhan had already been returned via zimmanama, and no credible threatening conduct was established.
Concluding that continuing the proceedings would be a "sheer abuse of the process of court," the revision application was allowed and the entire criminal proceeding before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, 24 Parganas South at Alipore was quashed in its entirety against the petitioners.
Case Title: Mrigesh Kanti Nath & Ors Vs. The State Of West Bengal & Anr
Case No.: CRR 4014 of 2023
Coram: Hon’ble Justice Chaitali Chatterjee Das
Advocate for the Petitioner: Ld. Sr. Adv. Sabyasachi Banerjee, Adv. Somenath Bhattacharjee, Adv. Pragya Banerjee, Adv. Abhishek Mukherjee, Adv. Kaustav Chatterjee
Advocate for the Respondent: Adv. Debaleena Ganguly, Ld.P.P Debasish Roy, Adv. Imran Ali, Adv. Debjani Sahu
Read Judgment @Latestlaws.com
Picture Source :
