Karnataka High Court quashes wife’s cruelty complaint against husband for not allowing her to eat French fries after delivery

The High Court of Karnataka has quashed a criminal case registered against a man by his wife in Bengaluru city for allegedly subjecting her to cruelty by preventing her from eating French fries, rice, and meat after the delivery of a child in the U.S.

The court termed the complaint as “abuse of process of law” by invoking Section 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Also, the court wondered how the police registered the first information report (FIR) on such a complaint without conducting a preliminary inquiry as per the guidelines of the apex court and went to the extent of preventing the husband from returning to the U.S to rejoin his job by issuing a Look-Out Circular (LOC) against him.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while allowing a petition filed by Abuzar A., 36, his father, mother and brother of Bengaluru.

They had questioned the complaint lodged by Abuzar’s wife in 2024 for the alleged incidents that occurred in 2020.

The court in August 2024 had allowed the petitioner to go to U.S to join work.

“A careful reading of the complaint reveals grievances such as dietary restrictions, expectations regarding attire, allocation of household responsibilities, disagreements over television preferences laced with a statement that the husband treated the complainant/wife as his servant. These allegations even if accepted at face value, portray a portrait of marital discord, but falls woefully short of depicting the statutory cruelty contemplated under Section 498A of the IPC,” the court observed.

What is more disquieting is the indiscriminating roping in of the parents-in-law and brother-in-law, despite their residence in India, while the marital life was largely lived abroad, the court said.

Citing apex court’s judgments that cautions against this very tendency of transforming a matrimonial dispute into a criminal dragnet ensnaring every member of the husband’s family, the High Court said, “To permit the present criminal process to lumber forward would be to allow law to become a weapon rather than a remedy”.

The High Court said that the continuation of investigation against the petitioners would serve no purpose other than to prolong harassment, stigmatise the petitioners and squander the precious time of the courts.

It was stated in the complaint that after the delivery, the husband did not want her to eat French fries, rice, and meat because she would put on weight... besides alleging that the husband did not buy clothes for her sometime after delivery and forced her to get them from her father from India, besides physically and mentally harassing by compelling her to do all the household works. The husband had denied the allegations.