Women Need To Realise That Beneficial Laws Aren't Means To Threaten, Domineer Or Extort From Their Husbands : Supreme Court

The Court observed that more often than not, provisions like Section 498A (cruelty), 376(rape), 377(unnatural sex), and 506(criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code are invoked as a *"combined package"* to pressurise the husband to accede to the demands of the wife in matrimonial cases. > *"The provisions in the criminal law are for the protection and empowerment of women but sometimes are used by certain women more for purposes that they are never meant for. In recent times, the invocation of Sections 498A, 376, 377, 506 of the IPC as a combined package in most of the complaints related to matrimonial disputes is a practice which has been condemned by this Court on several occasions."* *"In certain cases, the wife and her family tend to use a criminal complaint with all the above serious offences as a platform for negotiation and as a mechanism and a tool to get the husband and his family to comply with their demands, which are mostly monetary in nature,"* -the Court added. Sometimes this is done in a fit of rage, while at times, it is a "planned strategy."