Court emphasized that general and omnibus allegations against in-laws under Section 498A IPC do not warrant prosecution, warning against misuse of the law in matrimonial disputes.

ORAL ORDER

The petitioners are before this Court calling in question proceedings in C.C.No.23847/2024 registered for offence punishable under Sections 498A , 504, 506, 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 ('the IPC ' for short) and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act , 1961.

2. Heard Sri. Dinesh M. Bhat, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners; Sri. K. Nageshwarappa, learned High Court Government Pleader appearing for respondent No.1 and Sri. V. Shivakumar, learned counsel appearing for respondent No.2.

3. Respondent No.2 is the complainant. The petitioners are one is Mother-in-law, Father-in-law, Brother-in- law and Brother-in-law's wife. The husband/accused No.1 and respondent No.2/complainant get married on 14.09.2020. Relationship between the two appears to have turned sour, thereafter. The turning of sour of the relationship leads to accused No.1 and the complainant to register several crimes against each other. One such complaint is registered by the complainant on 12.12.2023, which becomes a crime in crime No.302/2023. The Police conduct investigation on the said crime and file a charge sheet against these petitioners. Filing of the charge sheet is what has driven the petitioners to this Court in the subject petition. This Court had interdicted further proceedings against the petitioners. The interim order subsists even today. The husband/accused No.1 is not before the Court.Therefore, trial against the husband is on.

4. Sri. Dinesh M. Bhat, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners would vehemently contend that there is no allegation that would pin at the ingredients of the offence under Section 498A of the IPC or any other offence that is alleged against these petitioners. All the allegations are omnibus. There is no overtact alleged for the purpose of demand of dowry. There is no demand of dowry in fact in the case at hand, is the submission of the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner. All the allegation of the wife is that the husband used to hand over the entire salary not to her, but to his mother. That is the entire issue in the case at hand is his submission.

5. Per contra, the learned counsel appearing for the complainant would seek to refute the submissions of the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners in contending that the Police after investigation have filed a charge sheet. The mother-in-law and the father-in-law and all the accused used to stay in a joint family. Therefore, the allegations are met in the case at hand and it is for the petitioners to come out clean in a full blown trial.

6. I have given my anxious consideration to the submissions made by the respective learned counsel and have perused the available material on record.

7. The afore-narrated facts and relationship between the parties to the lis are not in dispute. The marriage between accused No.1 and respondent No.2/complainant is a matter of fact. The relationship getting floundered between them is again a matter of fact. A complaint comes to be registered by the respondent No.2/complainant before the jurisdictional Police alleging the afore-quoted offences. Since the entire issue is now triggered from the complaint, I deem it appropriate to notice the complaint:

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