Patna, Jan 20 The Patna High Court has quashed criminal proceedings initiated by a lower court in Bihar upon the complaint of a woman who had alleged "cruelty" at the hands of her husband and his family members.
A single judge bench of Justice Rudra Prakash Mishra passed the order on Monday, when he also declared "void ab initio in the eyes of law" the woman's supposed marriage to Sumit Kumar, at a temple in Begusarai district.
The order was passed while allowing writ petitions of Manju Devi and others, all relatives of Sumit Kumar, who had challenged criminal proceedings initiated against them, under relevant sections of BNS, by the Judicial Magistrate of Begusarai on January 3, 2025.
The woman had submitted in the case lodged in Begusarai that she was a divorcee and had a child, and that Sumit Kumar had "voluntarily" married her despite knowing her background.
After some time, the woman had alleged that she began suffering "caste-based abuse and physical violence" at the hands of her husband and his family members, one of whom even tried to strangle her.
The court, however, observed that the "impugned order of cognisance suffers from non-application of mind and continuation of proceedings against the petitioners would result in grave miscarriage of justice".
The single bench underscored that "a crucial and undisputed aspect of the case" was "the categorical admission of the complainant that she had been residing separately from the petitioners for nearly three years and had never shared a household with them. This admission strikes at the very root of the allegation of cruelty".
"Cruelty, in the context of matrimonial offences, presupposes a degree of proximity, interaction, or cohabitation that enables harassment or ill-treatment. In the absence of any shared residence or meaningful interaction, the allegation of cruelty by the in-laws becomes inherently improbable", said the court.
"The only allegation with some degree of specificity is against petitioner no. 2, alleging an attempt to press the neck of the complainant. However, this allegation is conspicuously unsupported by any medical evidence or contemporaneous record," it said.
The court observed that the allegation was "doubtful".
"More importantly, this allegation does not find mention in the initial complaint and has surfaced for the first time during the enquiry through a witness statement. Such an improvement, in the absence of supporting material, renders the allegation doubtful and insufficient to sustain criminal prosecution", said the court.
The court also said that it "finds substantial merit in the submission that the very foundation of the prosecution is legally unsustainable. It is an admitted position that the complainant was previously married and has a minor child from the said marriage. No decree of divorce dissolving the earlier marriage has been placed on record. In the absence of dissolution of the subsisting marriage, the alleged subsequent marriage with accused Sumit Kumar is void ab initio in the eyes of law".
