The Division Bench comprising Justice AS Gadkari and Justice Neela Gokhale acknowledged the victims’ plight for marital cruelty but noted that Section 498A was being misused.
MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court recently expressed concern over the misuse of Section 498A (cruelty to wife by husband and relatives) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The Division Bench comprising Justice AS Gadkari and Justice Neela Gokhale acknowledged the victims’ plight for marital cruelty but noted that Section 498A was being misused.
The Court observed that even grandparents and bedridden individuals were being implicated in such cases, stating, “We do not appreciate this.”
The Court further added that thousands of cases could be resolved if the offence under Section 498A, IPC was made compoundable.
The Court’s remarks came in a petition for quashing a Section 498A case following a settlement between the wife and her husband, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law. After quashing the case in 2022, the Bench had recommended that the Central Government make the offence under Section 498A IPC compoundable.
In response, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development filed an affidavit, expressing that it would not be in the interest of women to make Section 498A IPC a compoundable offence. Subsequently, the State passed a bill in both houses of the legislative assembly to make the offence compoundable, which was sent to the President for assent.
The Ministry then requested clarifications from the State, and in January 2024, the Additional Solicitor General informed the High Court that the State’s bill could not be processed for want of requisite data. The Court was told that the Central Government had written to the Maharashtra Government on January 19, 2024, stating that a response from the State on the matter was still awaited.
The High Court remarked that the Union’s earlier affidavit did not mention these letters and failed to clarify that the bill could not be processed due to a lack of data from the State. Rather, the affidavit indicated that the Ministry’s opposition to making Section 498A compoundable was on the ground that it was not in the interest of women, which the Court found misleading.
The Bench had then directed the State to take steps to submit a fresh bill, incorporating additional data and addressing the anomalies pointed out by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. This exercise is yet to be completed.
Meanwhile, the IPC has now been replaced by the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), 2023, and a provision corresponding to Section 498A of the IPC has been incorporated in Section 85 of the BNS. Section 85 is not a compoundable offence under Section 359 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Surakhsa Sanhita (BNSS), which has replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure.
