The Bombay High Court has quashed a criminal case under Section 498A of the IPC filed by a judicial officer against her husband and his family members, ruling that the allegations did not amount to cruelty under the law.
A division bench of Justices AS Chandurkar and Jitendra Jain observed that the FIR appeared to be a counterblast to ongoing matrimonial disputes between the couple.
The couple had met through a matrimonial website and married in February 2018. According to the wife’s complaint, her husband refused to have conjugal relations after marriage, and several disputes arose between them. She alleged that on June 7, 2023, while her husband’s divorce petition was pending, the husband and his brother entered her judicial chambers and pressured her to sign divorce papers for mutual consent. She further claimed that her in-laws repeated the act the same day, disrupting her judicial work.
Based on this, she filed a police complaint on July 9, 2023, leading to an FIR under Sections 186 (obstructing a public servant), 353 (criminal force to deter public servant), 498A (cruelty), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.
The husband and his family approached the High Court seeking to quash the FIR. The bench found no evidence that the accused obstructed the wife from performing her judicial duties. The court noted that she completed her morning court session and left voluntarily for her chamber in the afternoon upon being informed by her peon—not due to any force or threat.
The judges held that mere marital differences or disputes between spouses and in-laws cannot be considered cruelty under Section 498A IPC. Since the alleged incidents did not constitute obstruction of duty or criminal intimidation, the FIR had no legal basis.
With these findings, the Bombay High Court quashed the FIR against the husband and his in-laws.
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