SC imposes a cost of Rs. 5 lakh on the wife’s father for misusing state machinery by filing cases against the husband under Section 498A IPC at different places
On Friday (April 19, 2024), the Supreme Court (SC) bench constituting Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra heard the Parteek Bansal vs. State of Rajasthan & Ors. case. The bench imposed a cost of Rs. 5 lakh on the father of a lady police officer from Rajasthan for filing cases against her husband under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) at different places to harass him. The bench deprecated the practice of ‘state machinery being misused for ulterior motives and for causing harassment to the other side’ and imposed a cost to compensate Prateek Bansal (appellant). Further, the SC ordered to submit the imposed cost within four weeks to the top court’s Registrar.
During the proceedings, the top court observed “Without going into these statutory provisions and the case laws relied upon by the parties, we are convinced that the impugned proceedings are nothing but an abuse of the process of law.” It added, “The respondent No.3 (wife of the appellant) was a gazetted Police Officer at the relevant time and was also well aware of the laws, in particular the Cr.P.C. and the provisions thereto. Neither the complainant nor the victim entered the witness box before the Hisar Court allowing total wastage of the valuable time of the Court and the investigating agency. Merely because she was a Police Officer, she first managed to get an FIR lodged at Hisar through her father, and thereafter she moved to her hometown at Udaipur and got another complaint lodged by her father within a week.”
In this case, Prateek Bansal and respondent No.3 (his wife) came in contact with each other through the Internet. The complainant (respondent No.2) who is the father of respondent No.3 had visited the appellant in Udaipur, who is a Chartered Accountant based in Hisar, for a proposal of marriage of his daughter, who was at that time posted as Deputy Superintendent of Police at Udaipur, Rajasthan. The marriage was solemnized at Udaipur. The respondent No.2 filed a complaint at the Police Station, Hisar, Haryana under Section 498A IPC etc. In the meantime, respondent No.2 submitted another complaint, five days after the first complaint at the Police Station, Udaipur in the State of Rajasthan on the same set of allegations as in the previous complaint.
In this context, the appellant filed a petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. before the High Court to quash the second FIR registered at Udaipur. By the impugned order, the HC dismissed the said petition primarily on two grounds. “Firstly, the complaint at Udaipur was prior in point of time than the complaint in Hisar. The second ground was that the Rajasthan Police was not aware of the earlier proceedings/complaint before the Hisar Police and as such the Udaipur Police should be at liberty to investigate the said complaint made at Udaipur.” The trial at Hisar was concluded, and the Trial Court vide judgment acquitted the appellant. The matter was therefore mentioned before the top court.
The SC said, “The impugned proceedings are nothing but an abuse of the process of law.” After hearing the contentions, the top court pointed out, “The High Court and the Rajasthan Police were expected to at least read the complaint carefully.” It added the HC fell in error in dismissing the appellant’s petition and quashed the impugned order passed by the HC. While quashing the order, the bench said “cost of Rs. 5,00,000/- (Rs. Five Lacs Only) … shall be deposited with the Registrar of this Court within four weeks and upon deposit of the same, 50% may be transmitted in the account of Supreme Court Legal Services Committee and the remaining 50% to the appellant.”
