New Delhi: A man has been acquitted of the charge of physically and mentally torturing his wife for dowry by a Delhi court which said the cause of dispute between them was “incompatibility and quarrelsome nature” of the woman and not the demand of dowry.
Metropolitan Magistrate Mona Tardi Kerketta absolved the Delhi resident of the charges under sections 498A (cruelty) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC, while relying on testimonies of the man and the children, who said the complainant had a temperament problem.
“The court is of the view that the accused (husband) has been able to demonstrate that the root cause of dispute was incompatibility and quarrelsome nature of the complainant and not the demand of dowry,” the magistrate said.
The woman’s in-laws, who were also accused in the case, were earlier discharged by the court.
While acquitting the man, the court also noted that there was a delay on the part of the woman in lodging the complaint.
“It is pertinent to note that in the present case, the complaint was made to police more than 18 days after she was allegedly thrown out of the house and about 15?16 years after cruelties, which are claimed to have been committed since the very beginning of the marriage.
“Delay in lodging the FIR, more often than not, results in embellishment and exaggeration, which is a creature of an after thought,” the court said.
According to the prosecution, on September 1, 2006, the woman had lodged a complaint against her husband and in-laws for physically and mentally harassing her for dowry.
The woman, who had married the man in 1989, alleged that her father-in-law tried to molest her and other in-laws had instigated her children against her. The children also used to beat her, she had claimed. PTI AG SKV ZMN
