The Bombay High Court has recently made important comments in a dowry harassment case. A division bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Rohit Joshi said that “telling the wife that she cannot live with her husband unless she brings money from her parents” cannot amount to harassment.
The court said that if a woman is told by her husband or in-laws that she is unable to bring the demanded amount from her maternal home, then she will not get the right to cohabit with her husband. This does not come under the purview of mental or physical harassment.
In the case, the wife had accused her husband and in-laws of demanding that she bring Rs 5 lakh from her parents’ house so that her husband could get a permanent government job. The woman also said that her parents are poor and unable to pay such an amount.
The court said, “The husband and in-laws said that if she could not bring money then she should not come to live with them. But on this basis no clear evidence of mental and physical torture was found.”
The court also found that the woman had made allegations of mental and physical harassment in her FIR, but did not give clear information about the specific incidents that took place during this period.
In this judgment the Court also raised questions on the process of police investigation, saying that the police usually only record the statements of the relatives of the complainant, while neighbors or other concerned persons are not interrogated.
The husband, in-laws, brother, married sister, brother-in-law and a cousin were accused in the case. The court dismissed the FIR filed against all of them saying that there was not enough evidence to prove the allegations in the case.
