“ Section 498A (Indian Penal Code, 1860) has been engrafted on the India penal code in a situation where the national conscience was disturbed by the intensity and volume of instances of wife beating, bride burning and cruelty of different degrees and variations directed against women that necessitated a law to punish such acts. Whereas religion and custom prescribed marriage to be a bond founded on love and the concept of sharing, local experience indicated, in some strata society particularly, that it had been transformed into a license to ill-treat. Law as an instrument of fostering social order is also required to be used as a channel for doing good and conversely for curbing evil. The essence of prescribing a punishment for matrimonial cruelty in a penal code will be frustrated if in proven instances of cruelty a court were to bend to the multifarious pleas for leniency. In our view, a proper and meaningful application of the law will not permit misguided clemency. This does not mean that our indignation, how so ever righteous, precludes us from taking cognizance of factors which do require consideration, but we refuse to be unduly swayed by them.”
(Hon'ble Justice S.M.Daud and M.F.Saldanha, State of Maharashtra V/s. Vasant Shanker Mhasane, 1993 Cr. L.J. 1134 at page 1144, para 28 )
