SMT GEETA SINGHAL Vs. STATE OF U.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present Criminal Misc. Application has been filed under Sec. 482 Cr.P.C., to quash the entire criminal proceedings of Case no. 20633 of 2022 arising out of Case Crime No. 578 of 2021, State of U.P. vs. Akhil Singhal and others, pending in the court of learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ghaziabad, under Sec. 498A, 323, 504, 506, 406 I.P.C. and sec. 3/4 Dowry Prohibition Act, Police Station-Teela Mod, District Ghaziabad (U.P.) as well as Charge-sheet dtd. 24/3/2022 and cognizance order dtd. 16/5/2022.

(2.) Shorn of the details, Smt Harsha Singhal married to Akhil Singhal on 2/2/2012, after the marriage of the complainant with the applicant, she was subjected to cruelty and harassment on account of demand of additional dowry. The complainant was allegedly assaulted and mentally tortured by her husband and in-laws. It is further alleged that she was compelled to maintain unnatural physical relations against her will and was subjected to forced sexual intercourse without her consent. Allegations have also been levelled regarding an attempt to throw acid upon the complainant during an altercation. The complainant has further alleged that her stridhan and other belongings were retained by her mother-in-law and she was ultimately ousted from the matrimonial house and prevented from meeting or residing with her children. It has also been alleged that a demand of 5,00,000/- and 50 yards of landed? property was made from her in-laws side as additional dowry. The case was registered against the husband and the mother-in-law of the complainant, detailed mentioned above.

(3.) Learned counsel for the applicants submits that the allegations levelled in the First Information Report are false, frivolous and baseless, and the applicants have been falsely implicated due to matrimonial discord. It is further submitted that despite being continuously summoned by the Court on as many as 14 occasions, the complainant failed to appear before the Court for almost three years and only appeared after issuance of Non-Bailable Warrant, and the impugned FIR is a manifestly retaliatory 'counterblast ' to prior civil and criminal litigation and filed with unexplained delay, which casts serious doubt upon the genuineness of the prosecution case.