Justice M Nagaprasanna finds the allegations lack specific facts and rules that a woman's number of marriages cannot alone discredit her allegations.
The Karnataka High Court recently quashed a dowry harassment case against a Hosapete-based politician. Justice M Nagaprasanna held that the allegations of cruelty, assault, intentional insult and criminal intimidation lacked the specific factual foundation required to sustain a criminal prosecution, Bar & Bench reported.
"The filing of a charge sheet cannot breathe life into an accusation which, even upon acceptance at its face value, fails to disclose the essential ingredients of a criminal offence," the Court observed. It found the allegations bald and omnibus, without specific acts or particulars capable of satisfying the statutory ingredients of the offences.
The couple married on January 13, 2022. After the relationship deteriorated, the wife initiated criminal proceedings against the husband and other family members. Police filed a charge sheet against the husband and dropped the others.
The husband claimed the wife had married nine times and that the proceedings were part of a recurring pattern allegedly intended to secure monetary benefits. The wife acknowledged certain previous marriages but said they followed divorce, talaq or khula. The Court noted the husband's claim that his marriage to her was her seventh, and that the documents he relied upon indicated she subsequently entered an eighth and ninth marriage. It also took on record an affidavit attributed to the ninth husband alleging she threatened dowry harassment proceedings unless monetary demands were met.
The Court cautioned that the number of marriages "cannot, by itself, constitute an indictment of character or furnish a presumption of criminal misconduct." It said the complaint must be examined independently to determine whether the ingredients of the offences are made out.
