The Supreme Court has in a judgment advised caution to families facing marital trouble, stating that going to the police should be the “last resort”.
“Police machinery should be resorted to as a measure of last resort and that too in a very genuine case of cruelty and harassment. The Police machinery cannot be utilised for the purpose of holding the husband at ransom so that he could be squeezed by the wife at the instigation of her parents or relatives or friends,” a Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra observed on Friday.
Justice Pardiwala, who authored the judgment, said invocation of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (domestic cruelty) should not be mechanical in every case in which “a wife complains of harassment or ill-treatment”.
“Every matrimonial conduct, which may cause annoyance to the other, may not amount to cruelty. Mere trivial irritations, quarrels between spouses, which happen in day-to-day married life, may also not amount to cruelty,” the court noted.
Moreover, in cases of domestic abuse, an FIR is “not complete” without criminal intimidation to cause death or serious harm (Section 506(2) IPC) and causing hurt (Section 323 IPC).
The court requested the Parliament to make changes in Sections 85 (husband or his relative subjecting his wife to cruelty) and 86 (definition of cruelty) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which correspond with Section 498A IPC, after considering the pragmatic realities mentioned in the judgment, especially since the accused is looking at a jail of up to three years and fine. It said the provisions were only a verbatim reproduction of Section 498A.
The court directed its Registry to send a copy of the judgment to the Law and Home Secretaries and their respective Union Ministries.
The judgment said, many times, the parents including the close relatives of the wife make “a mountain out of a mole”.
Instead of salvaging the situation and making all possible endeavours to save the marriage, their action either due to ignorance or on account of sheer hatred towards the husband and his family members, brings about complete destruction of marriage on trivial issues, the court said.
“The first thing that comes in the mind of the wife, her parents and her relatives is the police, as if the Police is the panacea of all evil. No sooner the matter reaches the police, then even if there are fair chances of reconciliation between the spouses, they would get destroyed,” Justice Pardiwala noted.
The foundation of a sound marriage is tolerance, adjustment, and respecting one another.
The court advised couples to tolerate each other’s faults “to a certain bearable extent that has to be inherent in every marriage”.
“Petty quibbles, trifling differences are mundane matters and should not be exaggerated and blown out of proportion to destroy what is said to have been made in heaven,” it underscored.
Courts must not take a technical or a “hyper-sensitive” approach to what constitutes cruelty in matrimonial disputes. Judges should consider each individual case, keeping in view the physical and mental conditions of the parties, their character, and social status.
In matrimonial disputes the main sufferers are the children. Divorce plays a very dubious role so far as the upbringing of the children was concerned.
“The only reason why we are saying so is that instead of handling the whole issue delicately, the initiation of criminal proceedings would bring about nothing but hatred for each other. There may be cases of genuine ill-treatment and harassment by the husband and his family members towards the wife,” Justice Pardiwala explained.
High Courts, while hearing pleas to quash criminal proceedings, should consider every aspect and circumstances of cases.
