“498A. Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty.—Whoever, being the husband or the relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such woman to cruelty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine. Explanation.—For the purpose of this section, “cruelty” means—
(a)any wilful conduct which is of such a nature as is likely to drive the woman to commit suicide or to cause grave injury or danger to life, limb or health (whether mental or physical) of the woman; or
(b) harassment of the woman where such harassment is with a view to coercing her or any person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any property or valuable security or is on account of failure by her or any person related to her to meet such demand.”
This section was introduced in the IPC with an aim to work in tandem with the Dowry Prohibition Act since it was felt in some quarters that the mandate of the dowry Prohibition Act was not strong enough. In any case, this section was introduced with an aim to help married women facing harassment at their matrimonial homes due to dowry demands. Though this section was conceptualized and introduced with very lofty ideals, over a period of time the misuse of this provision began. The misuse became so rampant that even the Supreme Court took note of the fact in its various judgments. One such judgment in point is the “Preeti Gupta & Anr vs State Of Jharkhand & Anr on 13 August, 2010” where in the Honble Supreme Court observed : “30. It is a matter of common experience that most of these complaints under section 498-A IPC are filed in the heat of the moment over trivial issues without proper deliberations. We come across a large number of such complaints which are not even bona fide and are filed with oblique motive.” This again found reference in the famous Lalita Kumari case.
This is not to say that all cases are false and frivolous but the unfortunate misuse of this section is quite evident. Over a period of time many directions were passed by the Honble Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent the misuse of this provision. These directions also laid an emphasis on trying to make the parties reach a consensus and the saving of the marriage was stressed upon. The investigating authority’s powers to arrest were curtailed substantially, they were directed to first make efforts for mediation and only when that failed were they to register a fir. They were sensitized to look at the matter from a more humane crisis point of view rather that from the perspective of an offence having been committed. The involvement of many far flung relatives with the help of omnibus allegations was frowned upon.
The situation now is quite different from 2005-2006 when the police would register a case without even considering the facts and circumstances of the case. A case in point being the mush talked about Nisha Sharma dowry case : (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisha_Sharma_dowry_case) . From the first knowledge of the facts of the case the author can say that the registration of the case u/s. 498-A was wrong. The allegation was that the boy and his family had asked for dowry and the girl had refused to marry the prospective groom. She had turned back the ‘baraat’ from the gate itself. The essentials of a Hindu marriage consist of ‘saptpadi’ ( vernacularly also known as ‘saat phere’ seven rounds of the holy fire, though various sub cultures have various ceremonies like seven steps towards the moon/sun,etc) tieing of the holy thread( mangalsutra also plays an integral part in the whole ceremony. It is only after certain such ceremonies have taken place that a couple is considered to be married. In the case at hand no such ceremony took place since the groom and the wedding party was turned back from the gate. So because no such ceremony took place the boy and the girl were not legally married. Now comes the next limb of the argument advanced by the author since the complainant and the accused were not legally married, the groom could not be termed as the husband, now because the accused was not the husband he did not fall under the mischief of 498-A IPC quoted above. The very first few words of the section clearly and categorically say that the person needs to be a husband or his relative. So we see that first and foremost for the applicability of the section a valid marriage needs to have taken place.
