SC quashes 'vague' domestic violence complaint against husband; deems it abuse of legal process by wife

New Delhi [India], March 26 (ANI): The court">Supreme Court recently quashed a lower court order that had dismissed a husband's plea challenging a domestic violence complaint filed by his wife, after the couple filed a plea for mutual divorce.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K. Vinod Chandran termed the allegations filed by the wife as vague, generalised.
"The allegations which have been made such as that she has been thrown out of the house and being tortured, etc. are not only vague and generalized but they all precede the date i.e. on 09.10.2019 on which joint application for Mutual Divorce was filed, the Court noted, in its March 4 order.
The couple were married in April 2018 under Hindu rites. In October 2019, due to some matrimonial discord, they filed a plea for a joint mutual divorce. Three months later, the wife withdrew her petition for mutual divorce.
Subsequently, the wife filed a complaint against the husband under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, of 2005. The husband challenged the maintainability of the complaint by contending that the couple's mutual divorce proceedings were pending.
However, a Jammu court dismissed the husband's plea and posted the matter for further proceedings.
The top court however granted relief to the husband by quashing the Jammu court order and termed the entire complaint filed by the wife as an abuse of the process of law.
"Considering the nature of the case and the allegations made in the complaint and the sequence of events which we have already narrated above, entire complaints seem to be nothing but an abuse of the process of law", the bench added.
Advocates Akshat Malpani, Vandana Gupta and Rahul Gupta represented the petitioner's husband. (ANI)