There have been lot of news that have reported the false claims made by the victim against the person who is not proved to be the accused especially under section 498A of Indian Penal Code. This article will look into the nature of section 498A and the grounds on which the accused can defend or recover him from the false claims.

Section 498A of IPC:

Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code deals with the offence of cruelty committed by the husband or relative of the husband of a woman. The section penalizes any person who is the husband or the relative of the husband of a woman, subjecting the woman to cruelty.

In order to determine what amounts to cruelty, it is important to look into the explanation part under section 498A. This term has been greatly misused, which several times has been reiterated by the courts. As per the section, cruelty means,

Any kind of willful conduct, where the nature of that act is likely to drive the woman to commit suicide or to cause a grave injury to her or causes danger to her life, limb or even the health (both mental and physical) of that woman, orHarassment of the woman where such an act of harassment is done with an intention to force her or to coerce her or any other person in relation to her, to meet the unlawful demand for any property or valuable security or is on account of failure by her or any person related to her to meet such demand.

Grounds to defend false claims under section 498A:

Having seen the essential ingredients under section 498A of IPC, it is also important to know that there are false claims that are being made on the husband and his relative. Indian Judiciary has also criticized the complaints made falsely on the accused person. In cases of such nature, what are the grounds for the accused people, who through evidence proofs have to be acquitted? This section was also referred to be the one that has more acquittals than the convictions by the various courts in India. Few of the grounds or the possible legal protection measures that a man can take when his reputation is defamed with the kind of false accusations are as follows. Firstly, the husband has the opportunity to file a case of defamation under section 500 of the Indian penal code, 1860. Defamation is one of the grounds to defend if a case has been filed by the woman or the wife under section 498A of IPC. Section 500 is reiterated as follows:

Whoever defames another person shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a period which is not less than two years or with a fine or with both.

Secondly, as per section 9 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1909, the accused person that is the husband or his relative, shall be given a chance to file an application for the recovery of damages if he and his family have suffered due to the false accusations of cruelty and the harassment as provided under the Indian Penal code, 1860. Mostly, this would not be the ground to defend but forms as part of recovering the damages caused due to the defamation that occurred.

Thirdly, the accused person can seek the measures under section 182 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, against the false accusations under section 498A. As per this section, the power is vested with authorities to ensure that if the claims made under section 498A are irrelevant, the opportunity to defend should be given to the accused and the person making these claims shall be penalized with imprisonment for a term which may extend to months or a fine or even both under section 182 of Indian Penal code. The accused person shall also defend on the ground of misleading the Judiciary with false information and bogus claims.

Role of Judiciary in cases under section 498A:

As mentioned earlier, the Judiciary has played a progressive role in interpreting the cases on section 498A, especially when it finds that the claims are just to degrade or disable the person without any legal matters at all. Let us look into a few of the cases where the Judiciary has opined and observed the legal terrorism exercised through the misuse of section 498A of the Indian Penal code.

In the case of Sushil Kumar Sharma v. Union of India (2005), the court observed there are many cases that were reported as not bonafide and have been intended on fake motives. Cases of such nature should give the accused not only the acquittal but also the damages suffered by the accused person to defend him during the trial before the court. Of these offences are not seen or through the misuse, the person tries to unleash the new form of legal terrorism. It should be used as a shield and not as a weapon against the man. Having noted that just a misuse would not amount to invalidate the section on the grounds of constitutionality, rather the court held that the section should be constitutional.

In the case of Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014), the Supreme Court came up with the direction to be followed in case the court finds the accused as the victim in the cases of false claims under section 498A of IPC. Few of the directions include starttting from substantial evidence by the judicial magistrate for any convictions to the directions of the police officers. In case the police officer fails to adhere to the directions, then they shall be liable for prosecution for contempt of court. So, these are some of the grounds and the judicial directions to defend the cases under section 498A of the Indian Penal code, 1860.