Wonderful judgment from the Hon’ble Supreme Court whereby it is declared that filing a false complaint by Knife on husband and his family constitutes cruelty and this is sufficient ground a marriage can be dissolved.

The prosecution tried these tactics to counter the appeal from Husband

• if a specific finding regarding the falsity of the criminal complaint was returned
• if the Complainant or a witness on her behalf had committed perjury or had recorded a contradictory or incredible testimony
• it is not possible to label the wife’s criminal complaint detailed above as a false or a vindictive action. In other words, the acquittal of the Appellant and his family members in the criminal complaint does not by itself, automatically and justifiably, lead to the conclusion that the complaint was false
• the investigation may have been faulty
• the prosecution may have been so careless as to lead to the acquittal, but the acquittal would not always indicate that the Complainant had intentionally filed a false case

Hon’ble two-judge bench has destroyed this angle in Para 5.

The Respondent-Wife has admitted in her cross-examination that she did not mention all the incidents on which her Complaint is predicated, in her statement under Section 161 of the Cr.P.C. It is not her case that she had actually narrated all these facts to the Investigating Officer, but that he had neglected to mention them. This, it seems to us, is clearly indicative of the fact that the criminal complaint was a contrived afterthought. We affirm the view of the High Court that the criminal complaint was “ill advised”.

Final nail in the coffin:

Prosecution: the filing of the criminal complaint has not been pleaded in the petition itself by Husband

Supreme Court: the criminal complaint was filed by the wife after filing of the husband’s divorce petition, and being subsequent events could have been looked into by the Court.

This is also called as Counter blast.

In Para 7,

We unequivocally find that the Respondent-Wife had filed a false criminal complaint, and even one such complaint is sufficient to constitute matrimonial cruelty.

Citations: [2014 SUPREME 8 36], [2015 JLJR SC 1 114], [2014 JT 13 8], [2015 SCC CRI 3 400], [2015 RCR CIVIL SC 1 38], [2014 AIOL 702], [2015 ALLCC 90 808], [2015 ALLMR SC 2 435], [2015 ALR 108 742], [2015 AWC SC 1 80], [2015 SCSUPPL CHN 1 233], [2015 LW 4 671], [2015 OLR 1 267], [2015 PLJR 1 126], [2015 PLR 179 435], [2014 SCC 16 34], [2015 SCC CIV 3 415], [2014 SCC ONLINE SC 915], [2015 AIC 146 107]

Other Source links: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/175889126/ and https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/5767b12be691cb22da6d57e4

Reproduced in accordance with Section 52(q) of the Copyright Act 1957 (India) from main.sci.gov.in/judgments, judis.nic.in, lobis.nic.in, indiacode.nic.in and other Indian High Court and District Court Websites such as ecourts.gov.in