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‘Almighty took care of husband’ and SC rescued the stepson
SC observed that when the proceedings against the husband cannot continue because of his death, then it would be unjust to send the stepson for trial, especially, when there has been little interaction between him and the step-mother.
It was the kind of bitterness between a man and his wife that only the ‘almighty’ could end, said the Supreme Court as it came across a case where the woman slapped cruelty charges against her husband 30 years after the marriage and 28 years of living separately. The court noted that the rancor of the Delhi's couple ended only after the man died in February last year.
“The acrimony between appellant No.1 (man) and respondent No.2 (wife) has been taken care of by the Almighty, as the man passed away on 25.02.2020,” noted the SC bench, led by justice Sanjay K Kaul, as it declared that the man cannot be tried under penal charges once he is dead.
But, at the same time, the bench regretted that while the husband’s problems are taken care of by God, the stepson is still in the soup even though he was just nine when his father remarried. The woman wanted the stepson to be tried under the criminal charges for harassing her.
Despite death of the husband, the court lamented, there appears to be no end to the dispute in question “with which the son from the first marriage has little to do.”
The bench, which also included justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Hrishikesh Roy, took note that the stepson was in class IV and aged about 9 when his father married for the second time with the complainant in 1983.
The couple started living separately since 1984 while the stepson was in a boarding school in Maharashtra’s Panchgani between 1985and 1990. After his schooling, he was sent to Pune for higher studies. It was only after completing his college in Pune that the stepson came back to Delhi to stay with his father, who had since long been separated from the complainant.
But in 2014, the woman had an FIR registered at a police station in Delhi, accusing the father-son of torturing her and subjecting her to cruelty. After the Delhi high court refused to exonerate the father-son duo and asked them to prove their innocence during the trial, they moved the apex court in appeal.
Hearing the appeal earlier this week, the bench noted that the charges against the husband had to be dropped after his demise.
Underscoring that this FIR was filed after 30 years of marriage, an amused bench said: “The angst and resentment against the husband is such that respondent No.2 (woman) has roped in his son in the aforesaid factual matrix. As to how and why the son should be roped into this FIR, one wonders!”
It maintained that the FIR has nothing to do with the stepson, who is physically handicapped. When the proceedings against the husband cannot continue because of his death, the bench observed, it would be unjust to send the stepson for trial, especially, when there has been little interaction between him and the step-mother.
The bench emphasised that “no meaningful purpose would be served by relegating the stepson for a trial,” and added that the criminal proceedings against him need to be brought to an end too.
“We accordingly quash the criminal proceedings emanating from the FIR against the appellant no.2,” ordered the bench, coming to the rescue of the stepson.
