Live-in partners can be tried for cruelty under 498A : HC

The Karnataka high court has held that Indian Penal Code Section 498A, which punishes cruelty by a husband or his relatives, can apply even to “live-in relationships” and to “void or voidable marriages.”

- Ayesha Arvind

In an order passed on November 18, justice Suraj Govindaraj ruled that the term “husband” is not just limited to a man in a legaily valid marriage, but that it extends to anyone who enters a marriage-like relationship, or an arrangement that bears the attributes of marriage, including alive-in relationship.

In such cases, one can be booked and tried under Section 498A, which is now replaced by Sections 85 and 86 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, “so long as the ingredients of cruelty are proved,” the court said.

...the expression ‘husband’ in Section 498A IPC is not confined toa man ina legally valid marriage, but extends to one who enters into a marital relationship which is void or voidable, as also toa live-in relationship which bears the attributes of marriage, so long as the essential ingredients of cruelty as defined in the explanation to the section are satisfied,” the high court said.