Living Together Is Not a Shield Against Cruelty Charges: What the Supreme Court Just Ruled

A man argued he could not be prosecuted for cruelty because the woman was not his legal wife. The Supreme Court disagreed and extended Section 498A protection to live-in relationships that are genuinely marriage-like. Here is what the ruling means, who it protects, and who it does not.

The Case That Changed the Law

Dr. Lokesh B.H. was already married when he entered into a relationship with a woman named Theertha and, according to the allegations, presented himself to her as her husband. She did not know about his existing first marriage. She alleged that he and his family subjected her to dowry harassment, cruelty, and attempted to burn her. Criminal proceedings were initiated under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, the Dowry Prohibition Act, and other provisions.

Lokesh went to the Karnataka High Court seeking to quash the proceedings. His legal argument was precise: Section 498A punishes cruelty by a "husband" or his relatives. Since his alleged second marriage to Theertha was void under the Hindu Marriage Act because his first marriage was still subsisting, he was never legally her husband. And if he was never her husband, Section 498A could not apply.

The Karnataka High Court rejected this argument and refused to quash the proceedings. He appealed to the Supreme Court.

On August 1, 2026, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh dismissed his appeal in Dr. Lokesh B.H. and Ors. v. State of Karnataka and Anr. (2026 INSC 784). The bench upheld the criminal proceedings and did something that will reshape matrimonial law in India: it extended the protection of Section 498A to women in live-in relationships that genuinely resemble marriage.

What Is Section 498A and Why Does It Matter?

Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, now carried forward as Section 85 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, criminalises cruelty by a husband or his relatives toward a wife. The term "cruelty" under this provision covers two distinct things: conduct that is likely to drive a woman to suicide or cause grave injury to her health, and harassment to coerce her or her relatives into meeting unlawful demands including dowry demands.

The provision is significant for two reasons. First, it creates criminal liability, not merely civil liability. A conviction under Section 498A can result in up to three years imprisonment and a fine. Second, it has historically been one of the primary legal tools available to women facing domestic abuse and dowry harassment within marriage.

Its limitation, until this judgment, was that it applied only within legally valid marriages. A woman in a live-in relationship had no access to this criminal protection, even if her situation was functionally identical to that of a married woman.

The Three-Part Test the Supreme Court Has Now Created

The Court held that Section 498A can apply to a live-in relationship, but not to every live-in relationship. It drew a clear distinction between a broad, casual live-in arrangement and what it called a "relationship in the nature of marriage." Only the second category attracts Section 498A protection.

The three conditions that must all be satisfied before Section 498A can be invoked in a live-in relationship context are as follows.

First, the relationship must be between consenting adults. Section 498A, even as extended by this judgment, applies only where both parties were adult and capable of consenting to the relationship. It does not apply in situations involving minors or circumstances where consent was absent.

Second, the relationship must be akin to marriage in its character and substance. Not every live-in relationship qualifies. The relationship must have the characteristics of a marriage: cohabitation, mutual commitment, shared life, and the outward presentation of a marriage-like union. A short-term or clearly casual relationship does not meet this threshold.

Third, and most importantly, the intent to marry must be an intrinsic part of the relationship. Both parties must have entered the relationship with a genuine and mutual intent to formalise it as a marriage. This is the most demanding of the three conditions and the one most likely to be disputed in litigation. The woman seeking the protection of Section 498A must establish that the intent to marry was present and was shared, not assumed unilaterally.

Where all three conditions are met, the male partner in such a relationship is to be treated as a "husband" for the purposes of Section 498A, and his relatives are correspondingly covered.

Why the Court Extended the Law: Article 14

The constitutional reasoning behind the judgment is important to understand. The Court held that denying Section 498A protection to women in marriage-like live-in relationships violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before law and equal protection of the laws.

The logic is straightforward. A woman who is legally married and suffers cruelty from her husband has criminal law protection under Section 498A. A woman who is in a relationship that is functionally identical in every respect except a formal marriage registration, and who suffers the same cruelty from her partner, had no criminal law protection at all. The only difference between them is a piece of paper. Making that piece of paper the determinative factor in whether a woman deserves criminal protection against cruelty produces an arbitrary and discriminatory outcome that the Constitution does not permit.

The Court also addressed why the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 is not a sufficient answer to this gap. The DV Act recognises relationships in the nature of marriage and provides civil remedies to women in such relationships. But civil remedies and criminal liability serve fundamentally different purposes. The DV Act can get a woman a protection order or financial relief. Section 498A can result in the abuser's imprisonment. They are not interchangeable, and pointing to the DV Act as an alternative does not justify leaving a gap in criminal protection.

What the Court Was Careful to Say: The Limits

The Court was emphatic about two limitations that every practitioner and every party must understand clearly.

The extended interpretation applies strictly and only to Section 498A IPC or its equivalent Section 85 BNS. The Court stated explicitly that this ruling should not automatically govern the interpretation of any other penal provision. The word "husband" in any other statute is not affected by this judgment. Arguments that try to extend this reasoning to other criminal provisions will face the Court's clear language confining the holding to Section 498A.

The Court also directed that the safeguards from Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar must be strictly applied in these cases. The Arnesh Kumar guidelines require police to conduct preliminary enquiries before making any arrest in Section 498A cases, and require courts to apply their minds carefully before authorising custody. The concern is that Section 498A has historically been misused and the extension of its scope to live-in relationships increases the surface area for potential misuse. No accused partner or relative in a relationship in the nature of marriage shall be arrested without these preliminary enquiries being conducted.

What This Means for Couples in Live-In Relationships

For women in live-in relationships who are experiencing cruelty or dowry-related harassment, this judgment opens a door that was previously closed. If the relationship meets the three conditions, particularly the intent to marry, criminal proceedings under Section 498A are now available.

However, establishing that intent to marry is intrinsic to the relationship in the eyes of a court will require evidence. Conversations, messages, family introductions as a couple, financial interdependence, and other indicators of the marriage-like nature and intent of the relationship will all become relevant. This is not a simple threshold to meet and the burden of establishing it rests on the complainant.

For men in live-in relationships, this judgment creates a new category of criminal exposure they need to be aware of. Exploiting the technical invalidity of a marriage, as Lokesh attempted to do by relying on the void nature of his alleged second marriage to avoid Section 498A liability, is no longer a viable defence where the relationship itself was marriage-like and the man presented himself as a husband.

For families of partners in live-in relationships, the coverage of Section 498A includes "relatives of the husband." Where a live-in relationship qualifies under the new framework, the partner's relatives who participate in cruelty or dowry demands face the same criminal exposure they would face in a marriage context.

The Transition to the BNS

One open question that legal commentators are actively discussing following this judgment is whether the extended interpretation applies equally to Section 85 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, which replaces Section 498A IPC and uses similar language. The Supreme Court's judgment was delivered in the context of IPC provisions. The BNS applies to offences committed from July 1, 2024 onwards.

The language of Section 85 BNS and Section 498A IPC is substantively similar, and the constitutional reasoning behind this judgment, grounded in Article 14 and the legislative purpose of protecting women from domestic cruelty, applies equally. The weight of legal opinion suggests the extended interpretation should apply to Section 85 BNS as well, but this specific question awaits authoritative judicial confirmation.

The Bottom Line

Indian law now recognises that cruelty is cruelty whether it happens within a registered marriage or within a relationship that was meant to lead to one. The legal form of the relationship does not determine whether criminal protection is available. The substance and intent of the relationship do.

That is a significant and long-overdue development in how Indian matrimonial law protects women.

This blog is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance on matrimonial law, domestic violence matters, or related legal questions, please contact our team.