MUMBAI:
A Ghatkopar resident's attempts to file a domestic violence and dowry harassment case, 19 years after the alleged incidents of cruelty, against a man whom she claimed to have married, has been thrown out by the Bombay High Court.
"No doubt that the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act are for the purpose of safeguarding women from domestic violence," said Justice B R Gavai, "at the same time, the said provisions also cannot be permitted to be misused or abused."
The judge said that the first information report regarding cruelty was registered 19 years after the alleged marriage of 1989. The allegations of ill-treatment are also pertaining to the same year. "Regarding the ill-treatment, no specific incidence of ill-treatment either by the man or his parents has been stated in the said FIR," said the judge. "I find that permitting the proceedings to be initiated for an alleged violence, after the period of 19 years from the (incident), would be nothing less but an abuse of the process of law."
Shanta claimed that she had married Biju John in May 1989 according to Hindu religious rites. The same month Biju, though, returned to his hometown in Muvatupuzha, Kerala, saying he would return. When he did not, Shanta filed a petition in the family court for restitution of conjugal rights in 1990. Five years later, the family court dismissed Shanta's application saying the marriage was not valid - since she was a Hindu and he, a Christian. The marriage could have only been under the Special Marriage Act and not under the Hindu Marriage Act. The high court in 1997 had upheld the verdict.
Almost two decades later, in 2007, Shanta filed a complaint of domestic violence with the Vikhroli court.
The court issued proceedings against Biju and his family and appointed a protection officer. In 2008, she lodged an FIR at the Borivli police station under Section 498 A of the Indian Penal Code, alleging that she was subjected to cruelty by her "husband" and in-laws when she went to stay in her matrimonial home in 1989.
Shanta relied on a "marriage certificate" and photos to prove that she was married to Biju. The high court said that the magistrate and sessions court had erred in giving credence to the case.
"It appears that the magistrate has totally overlooked the orders passed by the family court and the order passed by this court in appeal in therefrom," said the judge.
Saying that "by no stretch of imagination" the charges can be invoked since the marriage was held to be invalid, the high court quashed both the FIR and the domestic violence case.
(Names of the couple have been changed to protect their identity)
