Section 498A IPC — FIR Quashed · 20 February 2026
Vaibhav Gopaldas Mundada & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra & Anr.: Bombay High Court Quashes Section 498A FIR Backed by WhatsApp Chats
High Court of Judicature at Bombay (Nagpur Bench) · 2026 LiveLaw (Bom) 72; Criminal Application No. 1349 of 2024
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After matrimonial discord, a wife filed an FIR under Sections 498A, 504 and 34 IPC against her husband and his family. In seeking to have the FIR quashed, the husband placed on record WhatsApp chat logs and other contemporaneous communication records, arguing these showed the marriage had broken down over ordinary incompatibility rather than the cruelty alleged, and that the complaint's allegations were vague and did not specify what each accused person had actually done.
The Bombay High Court quashed the FIR and the proceedings. It held that where the documentary and digital material on record shows a marriage was merely strained rather than marked by conduct amounting to cruelty, and the allegations in the complaint are general and omnibus rather than specific, continuing the criminal proceedings amounts to an abuse of process. The Court observed more broadly that invoking Section 498A indiscriminately in cases of ordinary marital breakdown trivialises the protective purpose the provision is meant to serve.
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