Supreme Court slams different standards in dowry case: Why vague allegations against in-laws won’t stand

Supreme Court: High court applied different standards

• The Supreme Court found fault with the reasoning adopted by the high court.
• The court held that the Patna High Court had erred in refusing to quash proceedings against the parents-in-law despite acknowledging that similar allegations against the sister-in-law were too general to sustain criminal prosecution.
• Allowing the appeal, the court ruled that once the high court found the allegations against one family member to be vague and omnibus, the same reasoning ought to have applied to the others who stood on identical footing.
• After carefully examining the FIR, the bench observed that the allegations against the sister-in-law and the parents-in-law were substantially identical, with no specific role attributed to any of them.

• The court observed, “The FIR does not assign any specific or overt act to either appellant; there are no particular dates, places, or individual acts attributed to them.”
• The only allegation specifically mentioned against the parents-in-law was that they would quarrel with the complainant, which the court held could not constitute a criminal offence capable of sustaining charges under the IPC or the Dowry Prohibition Act.
• The bench emphasised that once the high court concluded that the allegations against the sister-in-law were vague, the same reasoning should have applied to the parents-in-law as well.

Delay in complaint raises doubt

• The court also took note of the sequence of events leading to the filing of the criminal case.
• While the marriage took place in July 2019 and the husband filed for divorce in March 2021, the criminal complaint was lodged only in March 2022, almost a year after the divorce petition.

• The bench observed that although delay alone cannot be a ground for quashing a case, when read together with the absence of specific allegations, it lent some support to the argument that the complaint might have been filed as a “counter-blast” to the divorce proceedings.

Case against husband to continue

• The Supreme Court clarified that its observations were limited to the maintainability of proceedings against the parents-in-law.
• Since the husband had not sought quashing of the case either before the high court or the Supreme Court, the court refrained from commenting on the allegations against him.

• Accordingly, the criminal proceedings against the husband will continue before the trial court in accordance with law.

Final directions

• Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court set aside the Patna High Court’s order insofar as it refused to quash proceedings against the parents-in-law.
• As a result, all criminal proceedings arising out of a complaint registered in 2022 stand quashed with respect to the appellants, the court held.
• The appeal was accordingly allowed, and all pending applications were disposed of.

Marriage, subsequent matrimonial dispute

• The dispute traces back to the marriage of the complainant with the son of the appellants, which took place on July 8, 2019.
• According to the complaint, soon after the marriage, the woman allegedly began facing cruelty and harassment from her husband and his family over dowry demands.

• However, relations between the couple deteriorated, and on March 31, 2021, the husband filed a divorce petition under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 before the family court in Darbhanga, Bihar.
• Nearly a year later, on March 18, 2022, the woman submitted a written complaint to the police, which led to the registration of an FIR in 2022 at Lalit Narayan University police station in Darbhanga district.

Allegations of dowry demand, assault

• In the FIR, the complainant alleged that she was subjected to persistent harassment and cruelty by her husband, parents-in-law and sister-in-law.
• She claimed that the accused demanded a BMW car and other expensive articles as dowry and subjected her to harassment when the demand was not fulfilled.

• The complaint further alleged that the husband physically assaulted her and that on March 18, 2022, the accused persons acted together and attempted to strangulate her by tying a sheet around her neck with the intention of killing her.
• Apart from the police complaint, the woman also filed a case in 2022 before the chief judicial magistrate at Hajipur in Vaishali district, making further allegations against the same accused persons.

Criminal case, magistrate’s order

• Based on the FIR, the police conducted an investigation and submitted a police report on June 5, 2022.
• Subsequently, on September 7, 2022, a judicial magistrate took cognisance of offences under sections 341 (wrongful restraint), 323 (voluntarily causing simple hurt), 498A ( Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, and sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and issued summons against the husband, parents-in-law and sister-in-law.
• Prior to this, the parents-in-law had already secured anticipatory bail from the trial court on April 12, 2022.

Patna High Court grants partial relief

• The accused subsequently approached the Patna High Court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, seeking quashing of the criminal proceedings.
• On August 8, 2023, the high court partly allowed the petition.

• While it quashed the criminal proceedings against the sister-in-law, observing that the allegations against her were “general and omnibus in nature,” the court refused to grant the same relief to the parents-in-law, holding that a prima facie case was made out against them.
• Challenging this distinction, the parents-in-law moved the Supreme Court.

Demanding gold in ‘chhoochhak’ ceremony not dowry

• Last year, the Supreme Court had observed that demand made for gold ornaments at the time of the “chhoochhak” ceremony cannot be considered to be a dowry demand and set aside the conviction of a man charged with the dowry death.
• According to information available, the ceremony involves parents of a married woman bringing gifts for her first child.
• While setting aside the man’s conviction under Section 304B (dowry death) of the IPC, a bench of Justice B V Nagarathna and Justice R Mahadevan held, “We find that the said demand made for gold ornaments at the time of the Chhoochhak ceremony cannot be considered to be a dowry demand.”
• The bench, however, upheld the man’s conviction for cruelty under Section 498A (cruelty) of the IPC.

SC rap to Allahabad HC judge

• The Allahabad High Court judge who requested the Chief Justice not to assign him the bail roster recently- after one of his bail orders was described as “most shocking and disappointing” by the Supreme Court– has overwhelmingly ordered bail in the dowry death cases heard by his Bench.
• An analysis by The Indian Express of the 510 publicly available regular bail orders in dowry death cases passed by the single-judge Bench headed by him between October and December 2025 shows that Justice Pankaj Bhatia gave bail in 508 or- 99.61% of the total cases.

Training for cops, judges, changes in school curriculum: How Supreme Court wants to combat ‘evil’ of dowry related offences

• Last year, the Supreme Court issued several directions to curb the practice of dowry and dowry deaths, while allowing the state’s appeal against the acquittal of a man and his mother, accused in a woman’s dowry-related death case.
• A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh underlined the “urgent need” to eradicate dowry saying it was a “constitutional and social necessity”.

• “The accused person(s) has finally been brought to book, there are many cases in which it is not the case. Many, who openly seek and give dowry, go scot-free,” the court added.
• The apex court, while restoring the conviction awarded by the trial court, said that time and again decisions under the Dowry Prohibition Act (DPA), 1961, had suffered from several “difficulties in implementation”.