The Delhi High Court has said that courts must scrutinize complaints or FIRs filed by wives against their husbands or his family members to determine whether the allegations have factual basis or are merely an example of “clever drafting”.

The High Court said that while the court was not expected to hold mini-trials, it could not simply act as a bystander and refuse to exercise its power to quash a criminal case if it found that continuing proceedings would defeat the ends of justice. and causing insurmountable harassment, pain and suffering to the defendant.

The report said this would be an abuse of the criminal process.

Justice Navin Chawla said that if a wife implicates her husband’s entire family in a criminal case, she can expect to receive a charge sheet carefully drafted by lawyers with specific charges against each of them.

The High Court said it would defeat the ends of justice to subject the husband’s family to the agony of a trial based solely on such a claim.

“I am therefore of the view that the court will have to scrutinize the complaint/FIR to ascertain whether the allegations are a well-drafted case or at least have some factual elements,” Justice Chawla said.

The high court came while quashing an FIR filed by a man’s estranged wife against his uncle and aunt for alleged cruelty to a married woman and criminal breach of trust under the ICC Act.

The FIR alleged that the woman’s husband and his relatives harassed and assaulted her since their marriage, and the court noted that while the marriage took place in 1997, the FIR was filed in 2017, 23 years later. Year.

The husband’s uncle and aunt sought to have the FIR filed against them quashed on the grounds that they had been living separately from their nephew and his wife and that their names were dragged into the case only because they were members of his family.

The high court noted in its order that the allegations against the husband’s family were mostly general and vague.

It allowed the petition and quashed the FIR and subsequent proceedings against the man’s relatives.

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