Cuttack, March 8: The Orissa High Court has quashed criminal proceedings initiated against a housewife for abetting her husband’s alleged possession of assets disproportionate to his known source of income.
The housewife cannot be made an accused in the disproportionate assets case only because there are certain assets in her name, the court said.
The Odisha Vigilance had registered a disproportionate assets case against the husband as the principal accused under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the wife was also made accused in the case.
She had challenged the entire criminal proceedings initiated against her.
“Usually, it is the natural course that an unemployed wife is always dependent upon the will of her employed husband,” the single judge bench of Justice Sibo Sankar Mishra observed.
The judge said, “The principal accused (husband) is in a position and capacity to dominate the will of the petitioner (wife). Thus, in the situation the petitioner has no scope to deny the will of her husband to participate in the purchasing of the movable or immovable property.”
