Mumbai: The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court has held that preventing a minor child from meeting her mother amounts to cruelty and harassment. The court refused to quash a case filed by a woman against her in-laws, citing the mental anguish caused to her.
A bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Rohit Joshi, on December 11, emphasized that separating a four-year-old child from her mother constitutes mental harassment under Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code.
“Keeping a young child of four years old away from her mother also amounts to mental harassment amounting to cruelty in as much as it would certainly cause grave injury to the mental health of the mother of the child,” the bench said.
The judges further noted, “The mental harassment is continuing from day to day till date. It is a continuing wrong.” Observing the seriousness of the allegations, the court decided not to interfere in the matter, rejecting the plea for quashing the case.
The woman had lodged an FIR in 2022 in Jalna district, accusing her father-in-law, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law of cruelty, harassment, and criminal intimidation. Married in 2019, she alleged that her husband and his family demanded money from her parents and subjected her to physical and verbal abuse. In May 2022, she was allegedly thrown out of her marital home without her daughter.
The woman sought custody of her child. In 2023, a magistrate’s court ordered her husband to hand over custody, however, the order was not complied with, and the child remains with the husband.
The high court noted that the in-laws were complicit in keeping the husband’s whereabouts hidden. “A judicial order passed by the Competent Court of law is also not being obeyed. Although the daughter is with the husband, we have already recorded that the applicants herein are assisting the husband in the sense that his whereabouts are not being disclosed,” the court stated.
The bench underscored that those who disregard judicial orders cannot seek legal reliefs. The in-laws, however, denied the allegations and claimed they were falsely implicated.
