The Telangana High Court recently quashed a dowry and fraud case, highlighting what it deemed an "abuse of the process of law" after discovering that the couple involved had already been divorced in the United States. Justice J. Sreenivas Rao delivered the judgment on August 26, emphasizing that the complainant had deliberately suppressed the crucial fact of the existing US divorce decree.
The case originated from a complaint filed by a woman's father against her son-in-law, a software engineer, and his family at the Karimnagar Women Police Station in 2021. The father-in-law alleged offenses under Sections 498A (cruelty) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code, as well as Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act. He claimed that despite spending ₹15 lakh on the wedding in December 2014 and providing 50 tulas of gold ornaments, the in-laws demanded an additional ₹1 crore as dowry and threatened his daughter with abandonment if the demand wasn't met. He further alleged that the husband attempted to remarry without a valid divorce, leading him to secure a temporary injunction from a civil court.
However, the petitioners, the software engineer and his family, contested these allegations, revealing that the marriage had been dissolved by a U.S. Circuit Court in April 2021, based on a marital settlement agreement voluntarily signed by both spouses. They also presented a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) from October 2021, where the husband's parents returned the gold ornaments and paid ₹24 lakh to the complainant and his wife as a full and final settlement. The court noted that the woman's father had suppressed facts about the MOU, under which her family had received Rs 24 lakh and gold ornaments as a 'full and final settlement'.
The High Court emphasized that the complainant had withheld critical information about the divorce and financial settlement when approaching the police. Justice Sreenivas Rao asserted that allowing the proceedings to continue under such circumstances would be an abuse of the legal process. The court observed that the couple had been living separately since October 2019 and had secured the divorce decree in the US in April 2021.
Furthermore, the court addressed the broader issue of implicating family members in matrimonial disputes without specific and substantiated allegations. Justice Rao referenced a Supreme Court ruling from 2024 that cautioned against this practice. He stated that general allegations against family members, lacking specific roles or actions, cannot form the basis of criminal prosecution under dowry laws. The Telangana High Court has previously ruled that vague allegations against in-laws in dowry harassment cases, especially those made as a form of revenge against the husband cannot be sustained without evidence. The court has criticized the practice of including elderly in-laws in the list of accused without any concrete material.
In this particular case, considering that the husband and wife had been living apart since 2019 and the complainant's family had already accepted the settlement, the court found no justification for prolonging the criminal proceedings. Citing precedents from the Supreme Court, the judge determined that the allegations were "absurd" and "inherently improbable," given the existing divorce decree and financial settlement. Consequently, the High Court allowed the petition and quashed the proceedings against the petitioners, effectively putting an end to the dowry and fraud case.
