Can a cruelty case stand when the marriage behind it was void? The Gujarat High Court has said it cannot, and has quashed the 498A FIR against a mother-in-law because the complainant’s earlier marriage was still subsisting when she married the applicant’s son.
Ahmedabad: Because the complainant’s earlier marriage was dissolved only after she married the applicant’s son, that marriage was null and void, and a 498A FIR against his mother cannot be sustained, the Gujarat High Court has held in quashing the FIR and all consequential proceedings against a woman accused of abetting cruelty by her son towards his wife [Hansaben Natwarlal Chauhan v. State of Gujarat and Another].
Allowing an application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Justice P. M. Raval set aside FIR I-C.R. No. 4 of 2018, registered on January 13, 2018 at the Mahila Police Station (East), Ahmedabad, under Sections 498A, 323, 494, 406 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code. The application was filed by Hansaben Natwarlal Chauhan, the mother-in-law of the de facto complainant, and the FIR is quashed only as against her. The judgment was pronounced on October 22, 2026.
Two dates, ten months apart
The timeline was undisputed. The complainant married the applicant’s son on February 1, 2007, but her earlier marriage was dissolved only on November 20, 2007. The Court held:
“…as per the settled legal position, the marriage with the present accused No. 1 is null and void and therefore, there is no question of attraction of Section 498A IPC.”
The couple lived together from the marriage until October 18, 2007, when both left for London, and the Court found no allegation against the applicant for those eight months. The only allegation of physical abuse related to London around November 2014. It called these allegations “vague and general in nature”, with no specific date, time or place in the FIR, and said that roping the applicant in without attributing any role to her “does not inspire confidence”.
What the FIR alleges
As per the FIR, the complainant married the applicant’s son, Himanshu Natwarlal Chauhan, on February 1, 2007, and the couple went to London. The complaint alleges that the applicant, during a short stay with them in London, abetted her son in ill-treating his wife; that from April 30, 2017 he told the complainant he was no longer interested in her and had married her only to settle in London; that he filed for divorce in a London court; and that he had remarried in December 2012 and later divorced, a fact the applicant allegedly did not disclose. These are allegations in the FIR and have not been tested.
Arguments on both sides
Senior Advocate Harshit Tolia, for the applicant, argued that she knew nothing of her son’s remarriage, that her son had lived in London for about ten years, that the FIR was filed with an ulterior motive to pressurise her, and that the dispute was between husband and wife. He also submitted that the marriage was void because the complainant, who had described herself as unmarried, obtained a divorce from an earlier husband only on November 20, 2007, nearly ten months after the February 2007 marriage.
The complainant’s counsel argued that a prima facie case was made out on a reading of the FIR, that the applicant suppressed the second marriage, and that the matter needed investigation. He also said the earlier marriage had ended by customary divorce. The Additional Public Prosecutor supported the continuation of the case.
Precedents the Court drew on
The Court began with the seven categories in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal [AIR 1992 SC 604] in which a High Court may quash proceedings to prevent abuse of process. It also referred to the Supreme Court’s observations in Preeti Gupta v. State of Jharkhand and Kahkashan Kausar v. State of Bihar on the tendency to implicate a husband’s relatives in matrimonial complaints, and to P. Sivakumar v. State and Shivcharan Lal Verma v. State of M.P. [(2007) 15 SCC 369], where the Supreme Court held that a second marriage during the subsistence of a first valid marriage is null and void and a conviction under Section 498A cannot stand.
The remaining offences, and the order
Section 494 punishes marrying again during the lifetime of a husband or wife. Here, the Court said, the complainant had herself married the applicant’s son while her earlier marriage subsisted, and her counsel could not show from any record or document that the alleged custom of divorce prevailed in her caste. The allegation that the son later married another woman and divorced her therefore “would pale into insignificance”. Section 406 was not attracted either, since no entrustment of property was alleged, and Section 114, on abetment, fell with the substantive offences.
The Court held that the case fell within categories (1), (3), (5) and (7) of Bhajan Lal, as the proceedings against the applicant appeared “manifestly frivolous and instituted with the ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance”. It allowed the application, quashed FIR I-C.R. No. 4 of 2018 and all consequential proceedings qua the present applicant, and made the Rule absolute. The order does not decide the matrimonial dispute between the husband and the complainant.
What the judgment signals
The Supreme Court’s reasoning on void marriages is here applied to a plea by a relative of the husband: if the marriage is void because an earlier marriage subsisted, the cruelty provision does not apply, and relatives cannot be prosecuted under it. The judgment also shows how courts read a broad, undated complaint against in-laws who are not alleged to have a specific role, which is a recurring ground for quashing at the threshold.
Case Title: Hansaben Natwarlal Chauhan v. State of Gujarat and Another
Case Number: R/Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 2785 of 2018
Bench: Justice P. M. Raval, Gujarat High Court
Date of Judgment: October 22, 2026
Appearances: Mr. Harshit Tolia, Senior Advocate, with Mr. Hardikkumar D. Rao, for the applicant; Mr. Jay S. Shah, Advocate, for respondent No. 2; Mr. Rohan Shah, APP, for the State