Section 498A Family Welfare Committee: The Two Month Rule

An FIR under Section 498A IPC has just been registered. What happens in the first two months? In many districts the matter can be referred to a Family Welfare Committee for a cooling period of about two months before the case moves further. This comes from guidelines of the Allahabad High Court that the Supreme Court, on 22 July 2025, directed should remain in force. Whether such a committee actually exists in your own district is something you must check locally, and this page shows you how.

This is a sensitive subject and both sides of a 498A matter land here for the same reason: they have been told that “nothing can happen for two months” and they want to know if that is true. The short answer is that a cooling-period referral exists on paper, its reach depends on your district, and neither the complainant nor the accused should treat it as a substitute for proper legal advice.

The single most important thing to get right is that the “two month cooling period” is not a phrase the Supreme Court itself used. The Supreme Court kept a set of High Court guidelines alive. Those guidelines are where the two months comes from. The distinction matters, because people on both sides often quote the wrong court.

On 22 July 2025 in Shivangi Bansal v. Sahib Bansal, the Supreme Court directed that the Allahabad High Court's guidelines from its judgment dated 13 June 2022 (Criminal Revision No. 1126 of 2022, paragraphs 32 to 38) on constitution of Family Welfare Committees as safeguards regarding misuse of Section 498A IPC “shall remain in effect and be implemented by the appropriate authorities.” The two-month cooling period is not the Supreme Court's phrase. It comes from those Allahabad High Court guidelines, which provide for a cooling period of two months during which the matter may be referred to a Family Welfare Committee in the district.

So the accurate way to say it is this: the Supreme Court directed that the Allahabad High Court's Family Welfare Committee guidelines remain in effect and be implemented; those guidelines provide for a cooling period of two months from the FIR or complaint, during which the matter may be referred to a Family Welfare Committee in the district. You can read the Supreme Court order yourself at https://indiankanoon.org/doc/41565735/ .

The judgment speaks of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with cruelty to a married woman by her husband or his relatives. The Indian Penal Code has since been replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which governs offences committed on or after 1 July 2024. For any new matter, check with a lawyer which provision of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita applies to your facts, because the section numbering has changed from the old IPC.

1. You have been told “nothing can happen for two months”. Treat that as a possibility, not a certainty. It depends on whether your district has actually constituted a Family Welfare Committee and how it works there.
2. Do not stop keeping records. Continue to preserve messages, medical papers, and any other material, exactly as your lawyer advises.
3. Ask your own lawyer, or the police, whether your matter has been or will be referred to a Family Welfare Committee, and what a referral means for the timeline of your case.
4. If you cannot get a clear answer about whether a committee even exists in your district, the RTI route below lets you ask in writing.

1. An FIR having been registered does not, by itself, tell you the whole procedure that will follow. Get legal advice immediately and do not contact the complainant except through lawyers.
2. Ask your lawyer whether a Family Welfare Committee referral is available in the district where the FIR was lodged, and what the cooling period means for your specific situation.
3. Do not assume the two months is automatic or nationwide. Whether it applies to you depends on local implementation, which you should confirm.
4. There is a separate, established route to challenge an FIR that contains only vague, omnibus allegations against relatives. See https://righttoinformation.wiki/quash-498a-fir-vague-allegations-in-laws-supreme-court for how the Supreme Court has treated such cases.

Because implementation is left to “the appropriate authorities” and genuinely varies, the honest way to find out what exists in your district is to ask in writing under the Right to Information Act, 2005. This is a suggestion of what to ask, not a promise about what you will find.

You can file a short RTI application (Section 6(1) of the RTI Act, with the standard ₹10 fee) with the District Legal Services Authority or the office of the District Magistrate / district administration for your district, asking, for example:

1. Whether a Family Welfare Committee for Section 498A matters has been constituted in this district, and if so, on what date and by which order.
2. The composition of the committee and the procedure it follows for a matter referred to it.
3. Any circular, notification, or standing order under which the committee operates.

If the office you write to is not the one holding the record, it must transfer your application to the right public authority under Section 6(3) within five days. If you get no reply within thirty days, or an unsatisfactory one, you can file a first appeal under Section 19(1). Keep your question narrow and factual, and do not put details of your own FIR into an RTI application.

For a plain-language walk-through of drafting, fees, and appeals, see The RTI Playbook.

No. The Supreme Court did not use the words “two months”. On 22 July 2025 in Shivangi Bansal v. Sahib Bansal it directed that the Allahabad High Court's Family Welfare Committee guidelines “shall remain in effect and be implemented by the appropriate authorities”. The two-month cooling period is a term of those High Court guidelines, and how far it reaches depends on district-level implementation.

You have to check. The Supreme Court left implementation to “the appropriate authorities”, and practice varies by district and state. Ask your lawyer, or file an RTI with your District Legal Services Authority or District Magistrate's office asking whether such a committee has been constituted and how it works.

This page cannot answer that for your case, because the arrest position is not something we can quote for you here, and it can depend on the facts and on local practice. Ask a lawyer about your specific FIR rather than relying on general talk that “nothing can happen for two months”.

The cooling-period referral is one thing; challenging the FIR is another. The Supreme Court has, in appropriate cases, quashed 498A FIRs that make only vague, general allegations against a wide circle of relatives. See https://righttoinformation.wiki/quash-498a-fir-vague-allegations-in-laws-supreme-court and take legal advice on whether your facts fit.

The Shivangi Bansal judgment speaks of Section 498A IPC. The Indian Penal Code has been replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 for offences committed on or after 1 July 2024. The subject of cruelty to a married woman continues to be an offence; check with a lawyer which provision of the new code applies to a new matter.

1. Read the Supreme Court order for yourself at https://indiankanoon.org/doc/41565735/ so you are quoting the right court.
2. Get independent legal advice on your specific FIR before acting on anything you have been told about the two months.
3. If you cannot find out whether your district has a Family Welfare Committee, file a narrow RTI with your District Legal Services Authority or District Magistrate, as set out above.
4. If you are on the accused side and the allegations are vague and omnibus, read https://righttoinformation.wiki/quash-498a-fir-vague-allegations-in-laws-supreme-court and discuss quashing with your lawyer.