The Supreme Court of India.

There are reports of misuse of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code by women to harass their husband and in-laws. (TOI illustration)

NEW DELHI: If a woman’s complaint accusing her husband and in-laws of cruelty under the dreaded Section 498A of Indian Penal Code turns out to be false, then the man is entitled to divorce, the Supreme Court has ruled.Allowing dissolution of marriage between K Srinivas and K Sunita, the court said, “We unequivocally find that the respondent-wife had filed a false criminal complaint, and even one such complaint is sufficient to constitute matrimonial cruelty. We accordingly dissolve the marriage of the parties.”After the wife left her matrimonial home on June 30, 1995, the husband filed a divorce suit on July 14, 1995 on the ground of cruelty as well as irretrievable breakdown of marriage. The wife retaliated by filing a criminal complaint against her husband and seven of his family members under various provisions of IPC and Dowry Prohibition Act. The husband and his family members were arrested and jailed.A Hyderabad court on June 30, 2000, acquitted the husband and his family members of the charges leveled against them by the wife. Another family court granted divorce to the husband on December 30, 1999 on grounds of cruelty as also irretrievable breakdown of marriage. But the HC, on the woman’s appeal, set aside the divorce decree.On the woman’s statement to police on the complaint lodged by her against her husband and his relatives, an apex court bench of justices Vikramjit Sen and PC Pant said, “This is clearly indicative of the fact that the criminal complaint was a contrived afterthought. We affirm the view of the HC that the criminal complaint was ‘ill advised’.”The judgment, authored by Justice Sen, added. “In these circumstances, the HC ought to have concluded that the wife knowingly and intentionally filed a false complaint, calculated to embarrass and incarcerate the husband and seven members of his family and that such conduct unquestionably constitutes cruelty as postulated under Section 13(1)(a) of the Hindu Marriage Act. In any event, both parties were fully aware of this facet of cruelty which was allegedly suffered by the husband.”Though the court granted divorce, it did so on the ground of cruelty to husband and not on irretrievable breakdown of marriage, a ground which was coined by the apex court in K Srinivas Rao judgment last year.The court said the Law Commission of India in its reports in 1978 as well as in 2009 had recommended introduction of irretrievable breakdown of marriage as a ground for dissolution of marriage and the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill of 2013 incorporating this ground had even received the assent of Rajya Sabha.“It is, however, highly debatable whether, in the Indian situation, where there is rampant oppression of women, such a ground would at all be expedient. But that controversy will be considered by the Lok Sabha,” the court said.