Supreme Court quashes dowry complaint filed with mala fide intention to harass

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has quashed criminal proceedings related to dowry harassment complaint filed by a woman against her father-in-law and step mother-in-law and others after noting that she has not named her husband as accused, who also filed civil suit laying claim over the property.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Pankaj Mithal said the provocation for the complaint/FIR lodged in 2013 is essentially the property dispute between father and son. The complaint/FIR is replete with just one theme i.e. that the appellants are threatening them that they will deny share in the property.

In its judgment on September 25, the court set aside the Bombay High Court's order of 2017 which refused to quash the FIR lodged in Jalna Maharashtra, after finding the criminal proceedings were instituted with a mala fide intention, only to harass the appellants.

"We have no hesitation in arriving at the conclusion that if the criminal proceedings are allowed to continue against the appellants, the same will be nothing short of abuse of process of law and travesty of justice," the bench said.

The bench emphasised the duty of the High Court, when its jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC or Article 226 of the Constitution is invoked on the ground that the Complaint/FIR is manifestly frivolous, vexatious or instituted with ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance, to examine the allegations with care and caution.

The court noted the FIR lodged in this case is rather "unique", in as much as the complainant has chosen not to involve her husband in the criminal proceedings, particularly when all the allegations related to demand of dowry.

"It appears that the complainant and her husband have distributed amongst themselves, the institution of civil and criminal proceedings against the appellants. While the husband institutes the civil suit, his wife, the complainant has chosen to initiate criminal proceedings. Interestingly, there is no reference of one proceeding in the other," the bench said.

The complainant's husband filed a civil suit in Anand against the three appellants, i.e. his father, stepmother and stepbrother seeking for a declaration that the property is ancestral in nature and that the father has no right to alienate or dispose of the property. In the suit, he also made the claim for the use the trademark of the family business.

Senior advocates A M Singhvi and Sidharth Luthra, appearing for appellants Kailashben Mahendrabhai Patel and others contended there is an existing civil dispute between the father and the son and as such this FIR, with vague and obscure allegations was an abuse of the process of criminal law. 

They also cited a trial court's order dismissing an identical complaint (though filed under the Domestic Violence Act) which attained finality for having not been challenged.

Going through the record, the bench also noted identical allegations were examined in detail, subjected to strict scrutiny, and rejected as being false and untenable.

"This case is yet another instance of abuse of criminal process and it would not be fair and just to subject the appellants to the entire criminal law process," the bench said.

The state and the complainant's counsel submitted that the charge sheet had already filed in the case.

"The chargesheet simply reproduces all the wordings of the complaint. There is nothing new even after investigation, the allegations made in the FIR/complaint are exactly the allegations in the charge sheet. Even otherwise, the position of law is well entrenched. There is no prohibition against quashing of the criminal proceedings even after the charge sheet has been filed," the bench said.