Blitz Bureau
THE Punjab & Haryana High Court has imposed a cost of Rs.1 lakh on a woman for lodging a complaint of physical cruelty against 100% disabled mother-in-law and father-in-law. The woman alleged that her in-laws who were found to be completely disabled, ran after her and hit her with a stick.
While quashing the cruelty FIR, Justice Nidhi Gupta said, “The sanctity of law, its legal processes, and its provisions which are enacted to mitigate suffering cannot be allowed to be blatantly misused as tools for setting personal scores. In the present case, the impugned FIR…is a gross abuse of the due process of law. As such, as a reformative, punitive and deterrent measure respondent No. 2-complaint is directed to deposit exemplary costs of Rs.1,00,000/- (Rs. 1 lac only)…”
“The petitioners (mother-in-law and father-in-law of the complainant) being 100% disabled, even unable to walk, and as such, for them to accomplish their day-to-day functions would cause them extreme hardship what to talk of abusing the complainant. I have no hesitation in stating that in the present case, the opposite is true in as much as evidently it is the complainant who has inflicted torture and abuse upon the petitioners as demonstrated from the discussion here in above,” the court observed.
The plea for quashing was filed by an elderly couple, who were accused of inflicting physical cruelty on their daughter-in-law. A complaint was filed against them by the woman under Sections 498-A IPC. It was submitted that as per the medical records, both the petitioners are 100% disabled and could not even walk.
