Observing that the “evils of dowry harassment and cruelty are a pestilence to the sanctum that is marriage” but cautioning against the indiscriminate roping in of distant relatives, the Delhi High Court has quashed an FIR against an 18-year-old girl implicated in a matrimonial dispute.

Justice Ajay Digpaul noted that while dowry-related offences must be dealt with utmost seriousness, the attempt to curb such social evils “must be balanced with the rights of those innocents who may be roped into the dispute purely by distant association with the accused through blood.”

The case pertained to an FIR lodged at Pandav Nagar Police Station under Sections 498A, 406 and 34 of the IPC. The petitioner was named along with five others, though the principal allegations of abuse, harassment and dowry

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