A lover is not a relative: Court

The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court has ruled that a woman having an extramarital affair with a married man cannot be booked under Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code which seeks to punish ‘‘cruelty to a married woman’’.

The order was passed by Justice V R Kingaonkar on Tuesday while quashing an FIR against a 28-year-old woman from Aurangabad who was hauled to the police station by the aggrieved wife of the man she was having an affair with. The high court held that the wording of the law made it clear that it was applicable only to ‘‘the husband and his relatives’’ who subjected a wife to cruelty, and another woman in a man’s life could not be considered a relative falling under its purview.

The complaint was filed at Gadgenagar police station in Amravati by Vishal Bhawar’s wife, Suhasini, who said that she had ‘‘noticed Bhawar having an extramarital affair with a woman called Rakhi’’. When she tried to dissuade him, he retorted that his ‘‘relations with Rakhi could not be snapped and would continue throughout his life’’. Suhasini subsequently alleged that she was subjected to cruelty by Vishal and his relatives, and filed a complaint under Section 498-A of the IPC in which Rakhi was also named as an accused. Suhasini’s advocate argued in court that Rakhi had been named because ‘‘she was the main reason why Suhasini was subjected to cruelty’’.

Justice Kingaonkar said that even if one assumed that ‘‘Rakhi was the cause of bickerings between the spouses (sic)... and Suhasini was being ill-treated or subjected to harassment because of the extramarital relation between Vishal and Rakhi’’, the police complaint against her was not maintainable under Section 498-A as Rakhi was not related to Vishal. (Names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved)

The Times of India 24 April 2008 P.3 New Delhi
With thanks from The Time of India
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