The Bombay High Court has raised concerns about the misuse of Section 498A, which often ropes in distant relatives of the husband in domestic violence cases.
Justice Vibha Kankanwadi, a single-judge bench, quashed the domestic violence proceedings against Jyoti Patil. She noted that Patil, who lived far from the complainant’s husband, was named as an accused solely because of her relation to him.
“Time and again, this Court as well as the Supreme Court has observed that it is a fashion to array all the relatives of the husband as respondents or to make them as an accused in a complaint under Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code and it shows the misuse of the proceedings of law, still the instances have not reduced. Such poor relatives, who were never staying with the husband, cannot be asked to face the proceedings on some stray statements about the domestic violence. Therefore, the application deserves to be allowed,” Justice Kankanwadi remarked.
The case involved a plea by Jyoti Patil seeking to quash criminal proceedings initiated by her sister-in-law, who accused Patil and her in-laws of torturing her. However, the court observed that the complainant herself had admitted that Patil lived in Bhusawal, working as a veterinarian, while her in-laws resided in Pune.
The court noted, “When she herself had given the address of the in-laws of Pune and then gives address of the applicant of Bhusawal, then, it was incumbent upon the aggrieved person (complainant) to satisfy as to what point of time the applicant and she herself were staying in the shared household after the marriage. When these basic pleadings are lacking and the documents on record are supporting the address given by the aggrieved person of a different place, then, a case is made out to invoke the inherent powers of this Court to quash the entire proceedings against the applicant. Therefore, the applicant cannot be asked to face the proceedings.”
Given these observations, the court quashed the proceedings against Jyoti Patil.
Case Title: Jyoti Ganesh Patil vs. State of Maharashtra
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