The Supreme Court has held that criminal proceedings against dowry demand will not be quashed solely on the ground that divorce between parties is pending.
The bench has overturned a judgement of the Allahabad High Court, which quashed criminal proceedings filed by a woman against her husband while observing that since the wife was battling AIDS and a divorce petition between the couple was pending, it was improbable that a demand for dowry was put out by the accused husband.
A bench of Justices KT Shah and CT Ravikumar said that mere affliction of disease or divorce petition is not a ground for holding that the dowry demands were bogus.
The Supreme Court has stated that the High Court has “seriously erred” in exercising its powers under section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code (inherent powers of the court) and has “exceeded its jurisdiction” while ordering to quash the criminal proceedings.
“Once the charge sheet was filed after the investigation having been found prima facie case, it cannot be said that the prosecution was bogus,” the top court noted, while setting aside the order of the High Court and termed the quashing order “unsustainable”. It said that the criminal proceedings against the original accused shall be restored.
The woman had approached the top court in appeal after being dissatisfied with the May 2019 order of the HC by which the accused were granted relief as proceedings for offences under section 498-A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty), section 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, and sections 3 (penalty for giving or taking dowry) and 4 (penalty for demanding dowry) of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, were quashed by the High Court.
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