Source : DailyIndia.com Sunday, January 28, 2006 [IANS]
By Indo Asian News Service
New Delhi, Jan 28 (IANS) The demand for scraping or amending a law on matrimonial cruelty has gathered steam with apprehensions being expressed about its misuse.
At a seminar organised by the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) here Sunday, 'victims' of the law, lawyers, judges and people from a cross-section of society voiced apprehensions that Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Domestic Violence Act, have been grossly misused by women to extort money from their husbands.
SIFF is an organisation of people who have been implicated in cases under Section 498A.
SIFF chairman Pandurang Katti, who had been exonerated by the Supreme Court after his wife had implicated him under the act, stressed on the need to review the two laws.
Katti, a software engineer from Bangalore, said that his organisation would continue its campaign to get the two laws amended to prevent gender bias.
Offenders under Section 498A are liable for imprisonment and a fine. The offence is non-bailable, non-compoundable and cognizable on a complaint made to the police officer by a woman or certain designated relatives.
Katti also rubbished statistics by the National Commission for Women (NCW) showing a large percentage of Indian women being subjected to domestic violence.
'When we asked them to show the basis on which these figures were arrived at, they had no answer,' he said.
Speaking on the occasion, retired Delhi High Court judge R.P. Gupta said laws are made to prevent mischief 'but become a problem when they are not properly implemented'.
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