The High Court of Karnataka has stayed the investigation of a criminal case registered against a man by his wife for allegedly subjecting her to cruelty by preventing her from eating French fries, rice, and meat after the delivery of a child in the US.
Court allows travel
Also, the court allowed the man to travel to the US, where he was employed, to rejoin his work since he was on the verge of losing his job as he was not allowed to leave India in view of the Look Out Circular (LOC) issued by the Bengaluru city police even though he had come to India after the wife lodged a complaint against him, his father and mother and his brother.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the interim order on a petition filed by him while observing that “permitting any investigation against the husband would become an abuse of the process of the law and putting a premium on the act of the wife in alleging that she was not allowed to eat French fries …”
The allegations in the complaint are due to minor skirmishes that happen between a husband and a wife in day-to-day life, and this was blown out of proportion in the complaint to drag these petitioners, husband and his family members, into the web of crime, the court noted.
What complainant said
“I had to deliver the next day because my blood pressure was high, and the doctor thought it was not safe for me to go back home. After the delivery, my husband didn’t want me to eat French fries, rice, and meat because I would put on weight …,” his wife claimed in her complaint. She also alleged that the husband did not buy clothes for her sometime after delivery and forced her to get them from her father from India, besides physically and mentally harassing her. She also complained that her husband was forcing her to do all the household work.
However, denying her allegations, the husband claimed in his petition that he did all the household work every day before leaving for the job in the US and the wife “only watched television and while not watching television was chatting with the members of the family over the phone”.
Why LOC?
Meanwhile, the court expressed surprise on how the police have used the power for securing LOC in these “trivial circumstances”.
“It is not use of power by the police but misuse of power at the behest of the complainant. There is no crime worth the name of issuance of LOC. The only object of the complainant appears to be stopping the petitioner from travelling back to his employment in the USA,” the court observed.
