Bengaluru, Nov. 30 -- The Karnataka high court has held that Indian Penal Code Section 498A, which punishes cruelty by a husband or his relatives, can apply even to "live-in relationships" and to "void or voidable marriages." In an order passed on November 18, justice Suraj Govindaraj ruled that the term "husband" is not just limited to a man in a legally valid marriage, but that it extends to anyone who enters a marriage-like relationship, or an arrangement that bears the attributes of marriage, including a live-in relationship. In such cases, one can be booked and tried under Section 498A, which is now replaced by Sections 85 and 86 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, "so long as the ingredients of cruelty are proved," the court said. "...the...