On January 18, the Bombay High Court, led by Justices Anuja Prabhudessai and Nitin Borkar, quashed an FIR filed against a man’s girlfriend. The FIR, registered in December 2022 at the Surgana police station (Nashik Rural), was under IPC Section 498A, which deals with cruelty by a husband or his relatives.
The case began after a woman claimed that her husband and his parents subjected her to mental and physical cruelty. She also alleged that her husband was having an affair, which led to frequent arguments and that he intended to marry his girlfriend.
The High Court referred to a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that defines ‘cruelty’ under Section 498A as conduct likely to drive a woman to suicide or cause serious harm to her health. It is also defined as harassment to coerce a woman or her relatives into meeting unlawful demands. The Supreme Court had previously ruled that a girlfriend or concubine is not considered a relative in legal terms.
The Bombay High Court judges confirmed that the girlfriend was not a relative of the husband. They noted that the only accusation against her was that she was involved in an extramarital affair with the husband and that he pressured his wife for a divorce to marry her.
The Court found that the FIR did not include allegations of abetment by the girlfriend, and even if all claims were true, they did not constitute a cognizable offence against her. The judges concluded that subjecting the girlfriend to criminal prosecution under these circumstances would be an abuse of the legal process.
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