{"id":13337,"date":"2024-05-04T07:01:53","date_gmt":"2024-05-04T01:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=13337"},"modified":"2025-10-13T12:41:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T07:11:55","slug":"what-is-section-498a-of-ipc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-section-498a-of-ipc\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC):\u00a0<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a crucial legal provision that aims to <strong>protect married women from cruelty <\/strong>inflicted upon them <strong>by their husbands or their relatives.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This section was introduced in 1983 as an amendment to the IPC <strong>to address the<\/strong> growing <strong>concern of domestic violence<\/strong> and harassment faced by married women in India.<\/li>\n<li>Under Section 498-A IPC, <strong>a husband or his relatives can be sentenced to <\/strong>a jail term of <strong>three years for subjecting the wife to cruelty<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The section <strong>applies to married women only<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The section <strong>defines cruelty<\/strong> as <strong>any wilful conduct<\/strong> that is likely<strong> to drive a woman to commit suicide or to cause grave injury<\/strong> to her life, limb, or health, whether mental or physical.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The conduct can <strong>be in the form of harassment or torture<\/strong>, with the<strong> intent to coerce<\/strong> the woman or her relatives <strong>to meet unlawful demands for property or money<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The section also defines the term \u2018<strong>husband\u2019<\/strong> to <strong>include a person who has a lega<\/strong>l or <strong>customary relationship with the woman<\/strong>, such as a <strong>live-in partner<\/strong> or a person who claims to be married to the woman but has not been legally married.<\/li>\n<li>There is no limitation as to the number of years within which the complaint has to be filed, and a <strong>wife can file a complaint<\/strong> under this section <strong>at any time.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Any offence under Section 498A is a <strong>cognizable <\/strong>one and is also <strong>non-compoundable<\/strong> and <strong>non-bailable.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Bail<\/strong> under Section 498A can <strong>only be granted by the Magistrate once a First Information Report (FIR)has been registered<\/strong> by the police based on a complaint filed by the aggrieved party.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Supreme Court Rulings:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/key-facts-about-supreme-court-of-india-sc\/\" target=\"_blank\">Supreme Court<\/a> has ruled that Section 498A should <strong>be used sparingly<\/strong> and <strong>only in cases where there is genuine evidence<\/strong> of cruelty.<\/li>\n<li>The court has also ruled that the section should<strong> not be used as a tool to settle personal scores.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The court emphasized the need for the police to conduct a<strong> thorough investigation before making arrests<\/strong>, to avoid unnecessary harassment of the accused.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To address these concerns, the <strong>government<\/strong> of India <strong>introduced the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA) in 2005<\/strong>, which provides a more comprehensive legal framework for addressing domestic violence and abuse against women.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What is a non-compoundable offence?<\/h3>\n<p>Compoundable offences are minor crimes where the victim can agree to drop charges through compromise. Non-compoundable offences are serious crimes that can\u2019t be settled and require full trials for justice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.barandbench.com\/news\/section-498a-ipc-copied-verbatim-new-criminal-law-make-changes-supreme-court-centre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Section 498A IPC has been copied verbatim in new criminal law; make changes: Supreme Court to Centre<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) aims to protect married women from cruelty inflicted upon them by their husbands or their relatives. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}