On Monday, the Supreme Court of India said that a husband would be primarily liable for injuries inflicted on his wife in her matrimonial home, even if it were caused by his relatives. The Apex court denied pre-arrest bail to a man (who was accused of assaulting his wife) when he pleaded that injuries inflicted on his wife were due to his father and not him.
As per a report in TOI, it was the man’s third marriage and the woman’s second. 1 year after their marriage, a child was born to them in 2018. Last year, the woman lodged a complaint with the Ludhiana police against her husband and in-laws, after they accused her of not meeting their growing dowry demands.
The Punjab & Haryana HC refused to grant anticipatory bail to the husband, and extracted the complaint that read, “On June 12, 2020, at about 9 pm, the petitioner (husband) and his father, armed with a cricket bat, gave the complainant merciless beatings in which the petitioner’s mother also participated; the petitioner attempted to strangulate the complainant and his father put a pillow on her face with an intention to kill her; after giving her merciless beatings, she was thrown on the road; on being informed, the complainant’s father and brother came there and got the complainant treated as also medico legally examined.”
The HC referred to the medical report that stated, “The complainant’s MLR reveals as many as ten injuries on her person including five on her head/face, one on her vagina and multiple reddish bruises of varying sizes around her neck. Eight of the ten injuries are medically opined to have been inflicted by a blunt weapon.”
The HC also added, “The above injuries and the medical opinion with regard to eight of them having been inflicted with a blunt weapon give prima facie credence to the allegations by the complainant with regard to the petitioner having attempted to murder her by strangulation and of beating her with a cricket bat (a blunt weapon).”
Kushagra Mahajan, who was the husband’s counsel, persisted in requesting the man’s anticipatory bail. To that, the SC bench headed by CJI S A Bobde responded to the man saying, “What kind of a man are you? She alleges that you were about to kill her by strangulation. She alleges that you forced a miscarriage. What kind of man are you to use a cricket bat to beat up your wife?”
When Mahajan further pleaded that the husband’s father had assaulted the woman with the bat and not him, the CJI-led bench stated, “It does not matter whether it was you (husband) or your father who allegedly used the bat to assault her. When injuries are inflicted on a woman in a matrimonial home, the primary liability is on the husband.”
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Cover Image Source- Left