cruelty

In criminal law, s.85 BNS (old s.498A IPC) punishes a husband or his relative who subjects a woman to cruelty, and s.86 defines it: (a) wilful conduct likely to drive her to suicide or cause grave injury or danger to her life, limb or health, mental or physical; or (b) harassment to coerce her or her relatives into meeting an unlawful demand for property. If she commits suicide within seven years of marriage after such cruelty, the court may presume abetment.

In matrimonial law, cruelty is a ground for divorce for either spouse (s.13(1)(ia) Hindu Marriage Act). It is wider and includes mental cruelty, judged by whether the conduct makes it unreasonable to expect the spouses to live together.

Example

Repeated beatings to force her parents to pay for a car amount to cruelty under both limbs of section 86 BNS.

In Indian law

• Sections 85 and 86, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (old s.498A IPC)
• Section 13(1)(ia), Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (cruelty as a ground for divorce)
• Samar Ghosh v. Jaya Ghosh, 2007 INSC 338: illustrations of mental cruelty

See also

dowry death · dowry · divorce · domestic violence

Read more in the study notes

• Offences relating to marriage: dowry death, bigamy and cruelty (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita)
• Cognizance, dismissal of complaints, commencement of proceedings and limitation (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita)
• From the IPC to the BNS: background, extent and key reforms (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita)
• Rape and sexual offences (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita)
• Offences against children (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita)
• Mob lynching, death by negligence and hit and run (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita)