Hello Mumbai Guest Post Desk
Not a Tool of Vendetta: How Husbands Are Winning
Legal Battles Against the Misuse of India’s Cruelty Laws
By Advocate Kanish Bangia — Founder, Krishna Law Offices, Gurugram
For almost forty years, one provision cast a longer shadow over Indian marriages than any other. Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code — the offence of cruelty by a husband or his relatives — was conceived in 1983 as a shield for women trapped in abusive homes. In many homes, it still is exactly that. But in courtroom after courtroom, judges have come to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: a law written to protect can also be turned into a weapon. Today, more husbands than ever are walking out of those courtrooms vindicated — not because the law has grown soft, but because it has grown discerning.
As someone who represents men caught in matrimonial litigation, I want to explain, plainly, where the law stands now and why the balance has shifted.
The law as it stands today
The first thing every husband should understand is that the landscape itself has changed. On 1 July 2024, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 replaced the colonial-era Indian Penal Code. The old Section 498A is now Section 85 of the BNS, while Section 86 defines what “cruelty” means. The punishment — imprisonment up to three years and a fine — remains the same. Procedurally, the protections against arbitrary arrest that once lived in Section 41A of the CrPC now sit in Section 35 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023.
In substance, little has changed; the offence was carried forward almost word for word. In fact, the Supreme Court has observed that the new provision is a near-verbatim reproduction of the old one, and has asked Parliament to consider reform in light of practical realities. So the number people still invoke in anger — “498A” — has a new name, but the same character: a cognizable, non bailable offence that can set the machinery of criminal law in motion the moment a complaint is filed.
That is precisely why the courts’ growing vigilance matters so much.
Why the tide has turned
Over the past two years, the Supreme Court has spoken with unusual candour about the misuse of these provisions. The message running through its judgments is consistent: cruelty laws exist to protect genuine victims, not to settle scores.
In Dara Lakshmi Narayana v. State of Telangana (2024), the Court quashed proceedings under the cruelty and dowry provisions, ruling that vague, omnibus and generalised allegations against a husband’s family cannot sustain a prosecution. In Digambar v. State of Maharashtra (December 2024), the Court was blunter still, cautioning that the provision was meant to curb genuine cruelty, not to be weaponised as a tool of personal vendetta.
The Court has also refused to let the law be applied like a rubber stamp. In the line of cases following State of Haryana (2025), it held that the cruelty provision should not be applied mechanically, and that merely naming family members in a matrimonial complaint, without specific allegations of their active involvement, is not enough. In December 2024, it went so far as to quash a case filed against a husband’s elderly parents, finding it had been registered with the ulterior motive of pressuring their son into consenting to a divorce.
Perhaps most significant for the ordinary litigant, the Supreme Court has endorsed the Allahabad High Court’s 2022 safeguards against misuse — including a cooling-off period and scrutiny of complaints by a Family Welfare Committee before an FIR is acted upon — and confirmed that these safeguards apply to Section 85 of the BNS as well.
This is not a fringe view. It is the settled, repeated direction of the country’s highest curt.
The battles husbands are winning — and how
In practice, a husband’s “win” rarely looks like a dramatic acquittal after a full trial. More often, it is an early, decisive intervention that stops an unjust prosecution before it consumes years of his life. These are the fronts on which men are succeeding:
Quashing the FIR at the threshold. Where a complaint is built on sweeping, unparticularised allegations, the High Court can quash it under Section 528 of the BNSS (the successor to Section 482 CrPC). This is the single most powerful remedy available, and courts are increasingly willing to use it when a complaint discloses no real offence.
Protection from automatic arrest. Since the landmark Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014), police cannot arrest a husband reflexively in a cruelty case. They must first issue a notice and record reasons justifying any arrest. That safeguard now operates through Section 35 of the BNSS and remains one of the strongest protections a husband has in the critical early days.
Anticipatory bail. For an offence that is non bailable, securing anticipatory bail promptly is often what keeps a man out of custody and in a position to fight back on equal footing.
Defeating “cruelty” on the merits. The Court has steadily narrowed what actually counts as cruelty. In Belide Swagath Kumar v. State of Telangana (2025), it held that a husband sending money to his parents, or asking his wife to maintain household accounts, does not amount to cruelty. In a December 2025 ruling, it held that the mere financial or monetary dominance of a husband cannot by itself qualify as cruelty. Each such ruling shrinks the space in which an exaggerated complaint can survive.
Turning the tables in divorce and maintenance. Matrimonial litigation is rarely one-dimensional. The same facts that defeat a false cruelty case can ground a husband’s own petition for divorce on the basis of mental cruelty, and can temper inflated or unrealistic maintenance demands when his genuine income and obligations are placed squarely before the court.
What actually makes the difference
If there is one lesson from these outcomes, it is that husbands win on preparation, not emotion. The men who come through matrimonial litigation intact are almost always the ones who did three things early and well: they preserved evidence — messages, call records, financial documents, and a clear timeline — before memories and devices were lost; they resisted the urge to retaliate in ways that could themselves be characterised as cruelty or harassment; and they engaged counsel at the first sign of trouble rather than after an FIR had already hardened into a chargesheet. The law now offers real protection, but it rewards those who meet it halfway.
A word of balance
None of this should be read as a dismissal of genuine suffering. Section 85 exists because cruelty within marriage is real, often hidden, and sometimes fatal. The Supreme Court itself has been careful to protect authentic victims even as it curbs abuse of the provision. The goal of a responsible advocate is not to help the guilty escape, but to ensure that the innocent are not crushed by a process that was never meant for them. A legal system worth respecting must be able to do both at once — and, increasingly, ours is learning to.
In closing
The husband’s side of the story has, for too long, been treated as an afterthought in Indian matrimonial law. The recent jurisprudence corrects that imbalance, insisting that criminal law not become a gateway for vengeance. For any man who finds himself accused, the message from the courts is quietly reassuring: the law can be misused, but it can also be answered — and, with the right defence, it increasingly .
Brief Introduction of Author:
Advocate Kanish Bangia is the founder of Krishna Law Offices, Gurugram, practising in matrimonial, criminal and family law. This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice; readers facing a specific situation should consult a qualified advocate.
