Karnataka High Court Fines Rs 25,000 To Woman For Filing False 498A Case On Husband

In a rare case, the Karnataka High Court has reprimanded a woman and directed her to pay Rs 25,000 as a cost to her ex-husband since she abused the process of law by registering a false case under section 498A IPC to harass him.

Case:

• 35-year-old Nazia Asma, a resident of Lashkar Mohalla, Mysore, was married to 50-year-old Faisal Ahmed Khan, a mechanical engineer who was working in Kuwait
• The marriage took place on July 21, 2008 and a female child was born to them
• Nazia did not agree to join her husband to go abroad and in order to save the marriage, the husband himself resigned from his job
• Later in 2011, Nazia left home for her sister’s engagement ceremony, however, never returned
• Her husband eventually got another job in Bahrain and left the country alone in 2012
• In April 2012, Nazia filed a complaint against Khan and his family members at the Women’s Police Station at Mysore, alleging harassment and demand for dowry
• She had alleged that Khan and his family had demanded Rs 3 lakh and additional money to purchase a car while filing a false case under 498A
• The Mysuru police had filed charge-sheet only against Faisal for offences punishable under Sections 498-A, 506 of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act
• Though the police filed a charge-sheet only against the husband, the High Court found no material against him
• Observing that wife’s statements in the complaint were full of contradictions, the court noted that the woman had first alleged that Khan; a) tried to kill her by trying to hang her, and after some days had said that; b) he tried to kill her by making her fall from a motorcycle
• The court also observed that the complainant was now silent on how she escaped, when her husband tried to hang her or why she sat behind him on the motorcycle even assuming that he had tried to hang her

Justice P.S. Dinesh Kumar passed the order, questioning the criminal proceedings initiated against Faisal Khan in 2012. The court said,

The woman filed unbelievable and self-contradicting allegations. The allegations against Mr Khan are designed to harass him.

Though the complaint was filed alleging commission of offence by the petitioner [Mr. Khan], it is in fact he who has suffered untold misery at the hands of the complainant [Ms. Asma].

Woman’s Second Marriage With Khan 

• When Nazia married Khan in 2008, she was facing a petition, filed by her first husband in 2006, seeking restitution of conjugal rights, before a civil court, which had temporarily restrained her from remarrying
• She had not disclosed this aspect to Khan, and her relationship with him came to an end in August 2011 after she refused to go with him to Kuwait, where he was employed
• Her complaint of domestic violence filed in 2012 against Khan was dismissed with costs by a court in Mysore in 2016 as she was found to have married again, for the third time
• Her plea filed in 2014 seeking maintenance from Khan was dismissed as she was found to have married earlier, the High Court noted, while pointing out that a court in Mysore in October 2018 had allowed a suit filed in 2015 by Khan and declared that his marriage with Nazia was “null and void”
• So technically, Nazia wanted money from second husband with whom her marriage was illegal and she wanted the maintenance from him, despite having married for the third time

Incidentally, the government of India believes in making only one sided gender centric laws, which leave husbands with nearly zero scope to defend themselves. This verdict is extremely rare and often the courts only quash cases with no punishment whatsoever to women.

ALSO READ –

http://voiceformenindia.com/in-the-law/false-dowry-harassment-charges-4/

http://voiceformenindia.com/in-the-news/shweta-tiwari-abhinav-kohli-domestic-violence/

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