The Supreme Court has cautioned against the misuse of anti-dowry provisions to implicate innocent persons for settling scores.
The apex court said the provisions relating to anti-dowry measures had been enacted to check the menace of dowry harassment but the same should not be used for harassing the husband or in-laws.
"Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (harassment of women) was introduced with the avowed object to combat the menace of dowry deaths and harassment to a woman at the hands of her husband or his relatives. Nevertheless, the provision should not be used as a device to achieve oblique motives," a bench of Justices Ashok Bhan and D K Jain observed.
The bench passed the observations while partly allowing the appeal filed by in-laws of a woman, Neetu, who alleged harassment for dowry by the husband and other family members.
Cases under IPC sections 498A (harassment of woman) and 406 (breach of trust) were registered against the husband Ashutosh Mishra, father-in-law Onkar Nath Mishra and the former's sister.
Neetu alleged that the husband and in-laws took away her stridhan (property given by her relatives) and harassed her for additional dowry.
Though a metropolitan magistrate quashed the charges on the ground that no case could be made out against the accused, the Sessions Court upheld the framing of the charges on an appeal from the Delhi government.
The accused filed an appeal in the Delhi High Court, which dismissed their plea following which they approached the apex court.
The apex court, after perusal of the documents, noted that there was no material evidence to prove that the stridhan was taken away by the husband and in-laws as alleged. Moreover, it noted that there was no material evidence to prove that the father-in-law and the sister-in-law had also subjected Neetu to harassment for dowry.
Hence, it quashed the charges leveled against the in-laws with the observations.
However, the apex court upheld the charge under Section 498A leveled against the husband and asked the trial court to proceed with the trial uninfluenced by its observations.