The Telangana High Court last month quashed a dowry harassment and fraud case, saying there was “deliberate suppression of facts” by the complainant, after finding out that the couple had already secured a divorce from a US court years ago. The continuation of the case would amount to an “abuse of the process of law”, the high court stated.
The case involved a criminal petition filed by a software engineer and his family seeking to quash the proceedings in a complaint lodged by his father-in-law.
The complainant had accused the son-in-law and his family of offences under Sections 498-A (cruelty) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code, and Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act. The complainant alleged that the son-in-law and his family demanded an additional dowry of Rs 1 crore and that he was planning a second marriage without a valid divorce. The complainant also stated that a temporary injunction was obtained to prevent the wedding.
The judgment, delivered by Justice J Sreenivas Rao on August 26, after examining the facts, found an entirely different turn of events. It was revealed that the couple had been living separately since October 2019 and had already secured a divorce decree from a Circuit Court in the United States on April 28, 2021.
Justice Rao also highlighted the existence of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed on October 27, 2021, a full month before the complaint was lodged. Under this agreement, the complainant and his wife had received Rs 24 lakh and all gold ornaments as a “full and final settlement”. The criminal case was filed after these events, with no mention of the divorce or the financial settlement.
In his pointed remarks, Justice Rao noted that the complainant “has not mentioned about the execution of MOU” in his complaint, describing the act of suppressing such a significant settlement as a clear attempt to misuse the law. The court also observed that while the Supreme Court had previously granted the daughter the liberty to initiate proceedings, she had not done so, further undermining the father’s complaint.
The judge concluded that based on these facts, the continuation of the criminal case against the petitioners was “nothing but an abuse of the process of law”. Citing precedents from the Supreme Court, the court determined that the allegations were “absurd” and “inherently improbable” given the existing divorce decree and financial settlement.
