The central legal point established in the judgment is that the definition of cruelty under Section 498A, I.P.C. includes persistent demands for property or money, constituting mental torture or cruelty, and that the offense of cruelty was not time-barred due to the continuing demand for money until the date of filing the complaint.

S.N.Pathak, J.

1. This criminal miscellaneous application has been filed seeking quashing of an order of cognizance dated 22.03.1997 passed by Shri Ved Prakash, Judicial Magistrate, Samastipur in Complaint Case No. 541 of 1996.

2. The relevant facts for this miscellaneous case, as per the complaint petition of Raj Kishore Sharma, are to the effect that the complainant had married his daughter Sandhya Kumari on 21st May, 1986 to Vagish Kumar. After marriage, the complainants daughter went to her Sasural and at the time of marriage, several articles including ornaments, furniture, refrigerator etc. worth rupees 2,54,000/- were given to the husbands family. The complainants husbands family became annoyed with the inadequate supply of articles and they started cursing the complainants daughter for the aforesaid lapse on the part of her father. It was also alleged by the husbands family that Rs. 2,00,000/-, as promised, were not paid. The complainants daughter Sandhaya Kumar came back from her Sasural and then again on 28.05.1986, she was sent to her Sasural on second marriage (Gauna). She lived there for two months in the house of the husbands family and discharged all her matrimonial homes duties. However, the son- in-law of the complainant was on a private job which was about to terminate and so he demanded rupees four to five lacs for doing private business. He started laying pressure on his wife to bring the aforesaid amount from her father. The complainants daughter and his son-in-law both came to the complainants house at Samastipur and made a demand of rupees four to five lacs. The complainant expressed his inability to meet the aforesaid demand of the son-in-law. Subsequently, the complainants daughter was admitted into M.A. Classes and she was kept in a Girls Hostel at Muzaffarpur by the family of her sasural and throughout she was being pressed for bringing rupees four to five lacs. However, when this amount was not paid by the complainant, his daughter was refused the expenses to be borne by his daughter in the Hostel towards studies. Then the complainant, under compulsion, started bearing her expenditures. The complainants daughter used to go to the house of her husband on her own accord but she was always ill-treated and the demand of rupees four to five lacs were still persisted. Ultimately, the complainants daughter was deserted by her husband and his family members and her property, which were gifted to her at the time of marriage, were usurped. In the year, 1987, in the month of May, the complainant and his daughter both went to meet Vagish Kumar in Nepal and they found that the husband was in the company of a Nepali girl. When a protest was lodged in this connection, Vagish Kumar misbehaved with the complainant and his daughter and humiliated them. In the year, 1991, on the occasion of the death of mother of Vagish Kumar, the complainant sent his son to the Sasural of his daughter but the son was also humiliated and insulted and sent back. The family of the complainants son-in-law kept on demanding rupees four to five lacs in order to take back his daughter then the complaint was filed.

3. It was submitted by the petitioners lawyer that if at all there was any allegation of tortures etc., it ended in the year, 1987 when, as alleged, the complainants daugher was banished from her Sasural, so the oognizance taken under Section 498A, I.P.C. was time barred and illegal. It was, further, submitted that it was the complainants daughter herself who had deserted her husbands family and so a matrimonial suit for divorce was filed by the husband and it was decreed and, therefore, the allegation of desertion of the daughter of the complainant by the husband is also not substantiated nor it was true and so the complaint was filed just to harass the petitioners. Moreover, if at all there was any allegation of tortures etc., it pertained to the husband only (petitioner No. 1) and the other family members were unnecessa