The police are calling you about a matrimonial dispute in Ghaziabad: what to do before the FIR

The call

Usually from the Mahila Thana, the local police station or a Family Counselling Centre, on a complaint by the wife or her family.

Your right

A written notice under Section 35(3) BNSS, and no arrest without recorded reasons in an offence up to seven years.

Your move

Appear on the date with counsel, hand over a written statement and copies, sign nothing else.

In parallel

An anticipatory bail application under Section 482 BNSS at the Sessions Court, Ghaziabad.

A matrimonial complaint in Ghaziabad rarely becomes an FIR on the day it is made. It sits at the Mahila Thana or the local police station as an application, the officer calls the husband and his family, and for days or weeks the matter is in a stage that is neither a case nor nothing. That stage decides a great deal about the case that follows. This page is about using it. The bail guide covers what happens once an FIR exists.

How the complaint reaches the police

The wife or her family may write to the Mahila Thana at Ghaziabad, to the police station for the matrimonial home, to the Superintendent of Police, to the UP Police 1090 helpline, or through the state grievance portal. Each route ends with an officer who has to decide whether the complaint discloses a cognizable offence, usually cruelty under Section 85 BNS (the old 498A IPC) and a dowry demand under the Dowry Prohibition Act. Before deciding, the officer commonly calls both sides. In Ghaziabad that call often comes with an invitation to the Family Counselling Centre attached to the Mahila Thana, where a counsellor tries reconciliation or a settlement.

Two things are true at once. The police are not obliged to counsel before registering an FIR for a cognizable offence; if the complaint discloses one, registration under Section 173 BNSS is their duty. And many complaints are drafted to disclose one. So the counselling stage is an opportunity, not a protection, and the anticipatory bail application is prepared while it runs.

Insist on the notice

A phone call is not a summons. The procedure the law provides is a written notice under Section 35(3) BNSS, which applies where the offence is punishable with up to seven years. The notice names the officer and the police station, refers to the complaint, and fixes a date and place to appear. Ask for it, politely, and give an address where it can be served. The reason is practical: the notice fixes what you are being asked about, and compliance with it is the single fact that most helps a bail application later, because Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar, (2014) 8 SCC 273, makes arrest on such a notice the exception that needs recorded reasons.

Appearing: with counsel, with a statement, with copies

You appear on the date, on time, with your advocate. You carry a written statement prepared in the chamber: a short account of the marriage, the separation and the specific allegations you can answer with documents, written without abuse and without a counter-allegation you cannot prove. You hand over copies of the marriage papers, the gift list, the rent agreement or ownership papers of the matrimonial home, the medical papers if any, and the messages that bear on the allegations, each against a receipt or a noting on your copy. You sign nothing drafted by the officer, no blank sheet, no undertaking to pay, no statement of admission. If asked to sign something, your advocate reads it first and the answer is usually that the written statement is your statement.

Keep a record of the appearance: date, officer, time in and out, what was handed over. The same record goes into the anticipatory bail application as proof that the applicant cooperated, which Section 482(2) BNSS makes relevant.

The counselling stage

At the Family Counselling Centre or the Mahila Thana the parties sit with a counsellor or an officer, sometimes across several sittings. It is not a court and nothing said there is evidence, but it is where the officer forms a view of who is unreasonable, and where a settlement first becomes possible. Attend with counsel. Say less than you want to. Put your position in writing and leave it on the file. Do not agree to a figure or a return of articles on the spot; a settlement that is to end the matter is written properly and placed before a court, because a 498A case settled only by handshake comes back.

If reconciliation is not realistic, the counselling stage is often where the shape of the eventual settlement appears: a mutual consent divorce, return of stridhan, a sum in full settlement, withdrawal of complaints on both sides, and a petition to the Allahabad High Court to quash whatever has been registered, as explained on the FIR quashing page.

Anticipatory bail, filed in parallel

The application under Section 482 BNSS does not wait for an FIR. The section is triggered by a reasonable apprehension of arrest in a non-bailable offence, and a complaint under enquiry with a notice served is exactly that. The application is filed at the Court of Sessions, RDC, Ghaziabad, for the husband and for every relative the complaint names, and the court can pass an interim order on the first date. If an FIR is then registered, the application is amended to add its number and continues. The grounds, the conditions and the course of the application are on the Section 482 BNSS page, and the first two days of the family's response are on the 498A first 48 hours page.

If you have a complaint of your own

A husband or his parents sometimes have a real grievance: articles taken, a threat recorded, a false complaint made before. It is filed on advice, with the proof, and at the time counsel chooses, not on the evening of the first call. A counter-complaint filed in a hurry reads as retaliation and is used against the bail application. If the police do not register a complaint that discloses a cognizable offence, Section 173(4) BNSS lets you write to the Superintendent of Police, and Section 175(3) BNSS lets you apply to the Magistrate at Ghaziabad for a direction to register and investigate.

What not to do

• Do not go to the police station on a phone call, alone, to "clear things up". Go on a notice, with counsel.
• Do not contact the complainant or her family, directly or through relatives. The contact becomes the next allegation.
• Do not delete chats, photographs or call records. Give the phone to counsel to be read.
• Do not pay anyone anything outside a written settlement.
• Do not leave Ghaziabad to avoid the call. Absence is read as flight, and it is the fastest way to lose the anticipatory bail route.

Once an FIR is registered, the stage changes: the notice procedure still applies, the bail application is amended, and the courts and sections for every next step are on the bail guide.

Read next

• Threat of arrest in a dowry or 498A case: the first 48 hours
• Anticipatory bail under Section 482 BNSS in the Ghaziabad Sessions Court
• Urgent bail hearing tomorrow morning in Ghaziabad

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