The Karnataka High Court has reprimanded a woman and directed her to pay Rs 25,000 as a cost to her ex-husband for abusing the process of law by registering a false case under section 498A IPC to harass her husband.
According to the reports, the Karnataka High Court, while directing the 35-year-old woman, a resident of Mysuru to pay the costs to her husband for filing a false case under 498A also quashed a criminal complaint against husband Faisal Ahmed Khan. Justice PS Dinesh Kumar passed the order while allowing a petition filed by 50-year-old Faisal Ahmed Khan, a mechanical engineer hailing from Hunsur in Mysuru district.
Nazia Asma, a resident of Lashkar Mohalla, Mysuru, had alleged that Khan and his relatives had harassed her and sought dowry. She had alleged that Khan and his family had demanded Rs 3 lakh and additional money to purchase a car while filing a false case under 498A.
Read: Supreme Court scraps no arrest rule under 498A says earlier verdict fell in ‘legislative sphere’
The police had initially filed a charge-sheet Khan, but the High Court did not find any material evidence against him. Observing that her statements in the complaint were full of contradictions, the court noted that she had first alleged that Khan tried to kill her by trying to hang her and after some days had said that he tried to kill her by making her fall from a motorcycle.
“The complaint is full of unbelievable and self-contradicting allegations. All allegations in the complaint are omnibus in nature. Neither the prosecution nor the complainant has placed any other material which may suggest the commission of any of the alleged criminal act/s by the petitioner. Therefore, it can be safely concluded that allegations against the petitioner are designed to harass him,” the court said.
Details of the false case under 498A:
Khan, who is a Mechanical Engineer was working in Kuwait. He had married Nazia on July 21, 2008, in Mysore. A female child was born to them. The woman did not agree to join her husband to go abroad. In order to save the marriage, the husband himself resigned from his job.
Later in 2011, Nazia left home for her sister’s engagement ceremony but never returned. Subsequently, Faisal Khan got another job in Bahrain and left the country alone in 2012. In April 2012, Nazia later filed a complaint against Khan and his family members at the Women’s Police Station at Mysuru, alleging harassment and demand for dowry.
The Mysuru police had filed charge-sheet only against Faisal for offences punishable under Sections 498-A, 506 of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act.
Interestingly it was revealed that Nazia had withheld details of her earlier marriage with a man called Asif Farooqi. She was a respondent in a matrimonial case for restitution of conjugal rights initiated by her first husband. As Faisal realised that Nazia was already married once, he questioned her about the suppression of the fact. Nazia then filed a false complaint against him. Thereafter, she got married for the third time and also had a child.
Rejecting all the allegations levelled by the woman against Khan of harassment the court said that it can be safely concluded that allegations against the petitioner are designed to harass him.
The court also observed that complaint is silent on how the wife escaped when Khan tried to hang her and why she sat behind him on the motorcycle even assuming that he had tried to hang her while pointing out several other “unbelievable and self-contradicting allegations”.
