The Madras High Court on Monday quashed a dowry harassment complaint. What made this case peculiar was that it had taken 18 years for the court to finally dispose of the quash petition by which time the four prime accused, including the complainant’s husband, died and their counsel passed away.
Second Division Bench of Justices P.N. Prakash and G. Chandrasekharan found that in 2014, then Acting Chief Justice had ordered listing of the quash petition before the Bench having criminal roster. “Strangely, from 2014 to 2022, the case bundle did not surface and only now the same has been posted for hearing before us,” they wrote.
Recalling the history of the case, the judges pointed out that the complainant had got married to the prime accused in 2001 and gave birth to a son, who was now 20 years old. In 2005, she lodged a complaint with the All Women Police Station in Tiruvallur accusing her husband and seven of his family members of dowry harassment. Hence, all eight accused had approached the High Court with the present petition in 2005 to the get the case quashed. The High Court dismissed the petition in 2006. However, when the petitioners took the order on appeal to the Supreme Court, the latter remanded the quash petition to the High Court in 2007 for being considered afresh.
On March 11, 2008, then Chief Justice issued an administrative order for listing the case before a specific Division Bench. But the case did not see the light of the day. Further, on July 10, 2014, then Acting Chief Justice passed another administrative order on listing of the case and this time, the case bundle went underground. When it was finally listed for hearing before the Division Bench led by Justice Prakash on November 4, 2022, the judges learnt that four of the eight quash petitioners and their counsel on record D. Sadhasivan were dead. It was brought to the notice of the court that the complainant’s husband had died in 2013.
Thereafter, in 2014, the victim woman lodged another complaint against her in-laws under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, accusing them of not having returned her Stridhana articles (gifts given to bride by her family). The dispute, however, got settled in 2018 after she was paid a compensation of ₹2.20 lakh in lieu of those articles.
As far as the 2005 dowry harassment complaint was concerned, the Bench found it was primarily directed against the husband and his parents, who were no more now. There were no prima facie materials for the prosecution to proceed against the other family members, the judges said, and quashed the case against the rest of the four surviving accused.
