Appeal against the dismissal of quash order
2. The present appeal is directed against an order of the High Court for the State of Telangana at Hyderabad dated 22nd December, 2022 passed in Criminal Petition No.11528 of 2022, whereby the High Court refused to quash proceedings arising out of C.C.No.1369 of 2022 on the file of XXVIth Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad at Hayathnagar, under Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code, 18601 and Section 6 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
4. The High Court found the allegations made in the charge-sheet, prima facie to be triable. As such, the prayer to exercise such powers was rejected.
Question of law
5. In the above context, the short point for consideration is whether the father i.e., the complainant herein, had any locus to file the First Information Report which has led to the present proceedings keeping in view that the same was affected by delay and laches, thereby expressly being non-maintainable? Contingent to the answer to this question would be, whether the High Court was correct in refusing to exercise its inherent power in quashing the proceedings under the Cr.P.C.
Woman exercise an absolute right over the stridhan property – Pratibha Rani’s case followed
6. The sum and substance of the present dispute lie in the father’s right over the gifts, i.e., ‘stridhan’ given by him to his daughter at the time of marriage. The generally accepted rule, which has been judicially recognized, is that the woman exercises an absolute right over the property. We may refer to Pratibha Rani v. Suraj Kumar, [(1985) 2 SCC 370] wherein a Bench of three Judges observed :
“… para.6 …”
The position of the wife or woman being the sole authority in respect of ‘stridhan’ stands emphatically stated in Rashmi Kumar v. Mahesh Kumar Bhada [(1997) 2 SCC 397] in the following terms:
“ … paras. 9 & 10 …”
Pratibha Rani (supra) stands followed recently in Maya Gopinathan v. Anoop S.B. [2024 SCC OnLine SC 609].
Noticeably, the position of law has remained consistent throughout since 1985, till date, regarding the sole authority of the woman in respect of her ‘stridhan’ as has also been held recently in Mala Kar v. State of Uttarakhand [2024 SCC OnLine SC 1049], wherein a decree of divorce stood passed inter se the parties on 18 th October 2014, and FIR was filed on 6 th April 2015, the appellant’s request for the respondent to pay a sum of Rs.10 Lakhs in full and final settlement of all claims, including ‘stridhan’ was accepted, and the former husband was directed to pay such amount.
7. As evidenced from the above, the jurisprudence as has been developed by this Court is unequivocal with respect to the singular right of the female (wife or former wife) as the case may be, being the sole owner of ‘stridhan’. It has been held that a husband has no right, and it has to then be necessarily concluded that a father too, has no right when the daughter is alive, well, and entirely capable of making decisions such as pursuing the cause of the recovery of her ‘stridhan’.
After the divorce no authorization by former wife to his father to initiate proceedings to recover Stridhan property exclusively belonging to her
9. It is undisputed that action was initiated for securing possession of the articles and ornaments after a passage of more than 20 years since the date of marriage and five years after the settlement of all marital issues at the time of divorce and that too, not by the former wife, i.e., the complainant’s daughter, but by the complainant himself. This coupled with the fact that there is no authorization on the part of the complainant’s daughter in his favour to initiate proceedings for recovery of ‘stridhan’ exclusively belonging to her, beckons the question on the basis of which the complainant has initiated the present proceedings.
No power of attorney executed by the complainant’s daughter
10. We find that the law provides for a situation where a woman may, in law, grant a person of her choosing the authority to do any act which she may herself execute. Section 5 of the Power of Attorney Act, 1882, provides as under:-
“5. Power-of-attorney of married women.—A married woman, of full age, shall, by virtue of this Act, have power, as if she were unmarried, by a non-testamentary instrument, to appoint an attorney on her behalf, for the purpose of executing any non testamentary instrument or doing any other act which she might herself execute or do; and the provisions of this Act, relating to instruments creating powers-of-attorney shall apply thereto.
This section applies only to instruments executed after this Act comes into force.”
It cannot be disputed that no such power of attorney, within the meaning of this Act, stood executed by the complainant’s daughter, in favour of her father, respondent No.2.
FIR was registered under section 406 IPC
13. As noted above, the FIR was registered under Section 406 IPC which prescribes a punishment for a criminal breach of trust. Section 405 defines the said offence and provides for the ingredients that are required to be fulfilled for the offence to be made out.
No iota of proof on record to show the complainant had entrusted the stridhan to the appellants
14. In view of the facts of this case, the very first ingredient itself is not made out, for there is no iota of proof on record to show that the complainant had entrusted the ‘stridhan’ of his daughter to the appellants which allegedly was illegally kept by them.
That apart, the second ingredient, i.e., the dishonest misappropriation or conversion for own use, also stands unfulfilled, for there is nothing on record to substantiate that the complainant’s daughter’s former in-laws converted the ‘stridhan’ allegedly kept in their custody, for their own use, more so, when the parties in matrimony had never ever raised ‘stridhan’ as an issue either in the subsistence of the marriage or thereafter, especially during the time of settlement of all issues.
Giving dowry and traditional presents does not raise a presumption as to the entrustment of the property
15. Another ground on which the charge fails is that, apart from a statement of the complainant that the ‘stridhan’ is with the former in-laws of his daughter, there is nothing on record to substantiate the factum of possession actually being with the appellants. In Bobbili Ramakrishna Raja Yadad & Ors. v. State of Andhra Pradesh [(2016) 3 SCC 309], this Court has held that giving dowry and traditional presents at the time of the wedding does not raise a presumption that such articles are thereby entrusted to the parents in-law so as to attract the ingredients of Section 6 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
Criminal proceedings is to bring a wrongdoer to justice and not to get revenge or seek a vendetta
17. We may further observe that the object of criminal proceedings is to bring a wrongdoer to justice, and it is not a means to get revenge or seek a vendetta against persons with whom the complainant may have a grudge. The principle in law that delay in filing the FIR has to be satisfactorily explained and does not need any reiteration. In the present case, the record is entirely silent on that aspect. It is also to be noted, in the FIR the authorities are requested to take action against the appellant for not returning the gifts given by the complainant to his daughter at the time of the marriage, however, in the charge-sheet such a complaint turns into a demand of dowry and being pressured into incurring expenses for marriage related functions. The question that is to be answered is that when the point of genesis is separate and distinct, how does the end result turn into something that is entirely foreign to the point of genesis?
20. In view of the above, we also hold that the charge under Section 6 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, is not made out and therefore, fails. Consequently, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the proceedings initiated by the complainant (CC No.1369/2022) against the present appellants have to be quashed and set aside. Any action commenced as a result thereof is bad in law. The questions raised in this appeal are answered accordingly.
21. The appeal is allowed in the above terms. The impugned judgment dated 22nd December 2022 in Criminal Petition No. 11528 of 2022 between the self-same parties, the complaint stands quashed and set aside. Pending applications, if any, are also disposed of.
Party
MULAKALA MALLESHWARA RAO & ANR. ..APPELLANT(S) Versus STATE OF TELANGANA & ANR. ..RESPONDENT(S) – CRIMINAL APPEAL NO………………. OF 2024 (Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No.3981/2023) – 2024 INSC 639 – August 29, 2024
Mulakala Malleshwara Rao vs. State of Telangana 115342023_2024-08-29
