A Section 498A case out of the Karnataka High Court has been getting attention this week, not for the seriousness of the allegations, but for how ordinary some of them turned out to be. On Tuesday, Justice M Nagaprasanna questioned whether being asked to prepare dosa and ragi mudde, among other everyday household requests, could really amount to cruelty under Section 498A. It’s the kind of question that gets to the heart of how Section 498A actually gets applied in practice.
What the Case Actually Involved
The petition arose from a wife’s complaint alleging marital cruelty by her husband and in-laws. Among the allegations placed before the Court were being asked to cook dosas and ragi balls, hair loss, not being given nutritious food, and even being asked to change her shampoo. The Court, while hearing the matter, orally remarked that “all these nitty-gritty family issues cannot become matters of crime,” and suggested such grievances belonged in divorce proceedings instead of a criminal complaint.
It’s worth being precise here, the Court hasn’t delivered a final verdict. It reserved judgment after these oral observations, so what’s making news right now is the Bench’s reasoning during the hearing, not a concluded ruling.
What Section 498A (Now Section 85 BNS) Actually Requires
Section 498A of the IPC, now Section 85 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, was introduced specifically to address cruelty by a husband or his relatives, cruelty serious enough to drive a woman to suicide, cause grave injury, or amount to harassment aimed at coercing unlawful demands, typically dowry. It was never meant to cover the ordinary friction that comes with sharing a household.
That’s precisely the gap this case seems to be sitting in. Domestic requests, disagreements over food, or personal habits don’t automatically meet the threshold Section 498A sets, even if they genuinely upset the person making the complaint. Section 498A requires something closer to sustained, deliberate harassment, not day-to-day domestic irritation.
Why Courts Keep Flagging Vague and Omnibus Allegations
This isn’t the first time a court has drawn this line. In Kahkashan Kausar v. State of Bihar (2022), the Supreme Court cautioned against dragging extended family members into Section 498A complaints on the basis of generalised, omnibus allegations lacking specific details. Karnataka High Court benches have echoed this repeatedly through 2026, quashing similar complaints where the accusations were, in the Court’s words, general and unsupported by particulars like dates or specific incidents.
There’s also a procedural angle worth remembering. In Lalita Kumari v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2014), the Supreme Court had directed a preliminary inquiry before registering an FIR in certain categories of cases, including matrimonial disputes, precisely to filter out complaints that don’t actually meet the legal threshold before they turn into a criminal case.
The Larger Debate Around Section 498A Misuse
None of this means Section 498A itself is being questioned as a law, courts have been consistent that genuine cruelty deserves serious legal consequences. What keeps coming up instead is how the provision gets applied in practice, where ordinary domestic friction sometimes gets bundled into a criminal complaint alongside genuine grievances, making it harder for courts to separate the two.
This tension between protecting women from real cruelty and preventing the provision from being stretched to cover routine disagreements is exactly what surfaced again in this Karnataka case, and it’s likely to keep surfacing until there’s more clarity on where that threshold actually sits.
Conclusion
This case hasn’t been decided yet, but the Karnataka High Court’s oral remarks add to a growing pattern of judicial scrutiny over how Section 498A complaints get framed. Being asked to cook a specific dish or change a shampoo brand isn’t the kind of conduct the provision was written for, and courts are increasingly willing to say so out loud, even before a final verdict is reached.
Written By – Khushi Mittal
