FIR Lodged 20 Months After Separation Only To Revenge Husband's Divorce Plea: Rajasthan High Court Quashes Wife's Cruelty FIR

The Rajasthan High Court has quashed a "retaliatory" cruelty FIR lodged against a man, underscoring that the case was instituted by the wife 20 months after living separately, only to revenge the divorce proceedings instituted by him.

The bench of Justice Anand Sharma further took into account that her response to the divorce plea, which was filed before the Court after lodging Section 498A FIR, was silent on the alleged cruelty which was described by her in the FIR.

Moreover, on one hand the wife had contested the divorce petition filed by the husband and on the other, during the pendency of the divorce proceedings, she expressed “no objection”, and as soon as divorce decree was passed, she remarried another person.

The Court held that these facts were sufficient to infer that the 498A proceedings were malicious in nature, and filed due to ulterior motive to “wreck vengeance”.

The petitioner had performed the marriage in 2012 which entered into marital discord soon thereafter. This led to a settlement agreement being signed between the petitioner and his wife. The wife had agreed to not lodge any criminal case against the petitioner or his family under Section 498A. Further the parties had agreed to file for divorce by mutual consent.

When their marriage completed one year, based on the settlement, the petitioner asked his wife to file a joint petition for mutual divorce which was denied by the wife. Hence, a divorce petition was filed by the petitioner for dissolution of marriage which was refused by the wife.

Soon thereafter, the wife lodged a complaint under Section 498A against the petitioner. Against this a quashing petition was filed before the Court.

It was the case of the petitioner that firstly, the divorce petition was opposed by the respondent, however the content of such contestation did not reveal any allegations of cruelty or dowry demand against the petitioner, despite the fact that such reply was filed subsequent to the FIR.

Secondly, even after filing a contest to the divorce petition, she subsequently gave a “no objection” for passing the decree of divorce based on which the divorce decree was passed. And soon after getting the divorce she remarried someone else. Hence, the FIR was filed only as a counter-blast to the divorce proceedings filed by the petitioner, to harass him and seek revenge.

After hearing the contentions, and perusing the records, the Court agreed with the arguments raised by the counsel for the petitioner, and further opined, “not lodging FIR for a period of 20 months from the date of desertion and lodging the same immediately after receiving information with regard to instituting petition for obtaining decree of divorce by the petitioner, would obviously raises a cloud of suspicion over the bona fides of the complainant”.

In the background of all these facts, the Court held that these were sufficient to infer that the 498A proceedings were instituted to retaliate and counter blast divorce proceedings initiated by the petitioner.

The Court also made a reference to the Supreme Court case of Dara Lakshmi Narayana & Others v. State of Telangana & Another, to point out that the Supreme Court had observed and deprecated a notable increase in matrimonial disputes and consequent increased tendency to misuse provisions like Section 498A as a tool for “unleashing personal vendetta against the husband and his family by a wife”.

Accordingly, the petition was allowed, and the criminal proceedings against the husband were quashed.

Title: Alok Kumar Chaturvedi v State of Rajasthan & Anr.

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 388

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