Women Protection vs. Women Empowerment

Alimony in divorces is a serious issue these days. Huge alimonies have stripped men of their finances in the West and this trend is slowly catching in India as well with the growing number of divorces. Recent studies in Mumbai showed that 40 % of marriages end in divorce. In Delhi, every day on an average 10 divorce cases are filed. And in majority of these cases men are ordered to pay alimony as they say alimony in divorce is a positive step towards “Women Empowerment” by making them financially independent. But alimony as a provision in divorce is despicable and subject to serious condemnation for many reasons underlined here,

1) Arranged Marriage in India is a communal decision and takes place as a result of the involvement of society elders, common friends and the parents of both the boy and the girl. Hence when the relation fails to work and ends in a divorce, the husband should not be the only one paying.

2) If it is a love marriage then both the adults are equally responsible and the man should not be the only one paying the price.

3) Alimony is the biggest motivator for women to file a divorce and stop making attempts to save the marriage. Also parents of girls, when they see the marriage is not working, encourage their daughters to move towards divorce in lieu of hefty alimony.

4) Due to the overwhelming and impending burden of alimony, married men in India continue to suffer in a bad marriage and refrain from buying a costly piece of paper called, ‘Divorce’ which results in higher stress levels for men and also higher suicide rates among Indian married men.

In line with the feminism that created waves in the 70s in the West, harsh, lopsided and severely anti – male laws were drafted in India in the name of Women Protection. And at the same time alimony was encouraged in the name of Women Empowerment. Today we have six laws quintessentially achieving the same objective of Women Protection and Women Empowerment in tandem.

But the basic ideology where the law makers, the society living with those laws and the media sleeping in deep slumber, not to protest against the loopholes in the laws and their implementation, fluttered is that, Protection and Empowerment can never go hand in hand. We don’t need to protect an empowered lot, hence when alimony was already provided for Women Empowerment, Women Protection was a redundancy. And if that was not the case then alimony as a means to Empower Women has failed miserably and has rather proved as a “Marriage Breaker” as reflected in a recent statement by renowned Supreme Court justice Arijit Pasayath that the Hindu Marriage Act has broken more families than joining them.

The statements seems more than apt. Though Hindu Marriage Act has provisions for saving as well breaking marriage, the one breaking marriage is more famous i.e. divorce. The section for saving marriage, Section 9 – Restitution of Conjugal Rights is a dead letter section of the Hindu Marriage Act which quintessentially trivializes the Indian culture of saving marriage, but sadly enough it is not only a lesser known section, it is non – executable as well, which means the court cannot enforce an order passed in this section.

Due to such reasons divorces are increasing day by day and the institution of marriage is slowly dying out. The government which barely manages to gather oxygen enough to survive in wake of recent turmoil and power tussle at the center has little / no time to look into this matter, impending over the society as a social catastrophe. The society, whose very existence is subject to strict proof with everyone in the society considering everyone else other than oneself as the society, with its paradoxical veil of technological advancement conveniently, chooses to ignore the victims of a bad marriage. The media, whose hunger for sensationalism is self – feeding, considers only the women as humans, raising its voice for women at every sneeze and whiff, is simply catalyzing a gender divide in the society and nothing else.

In view of the all the above contentions and discussions, yet it remains a question, whether Empowerment and Protection can go hand in hand? Let the stalwarts answer this.

Legal Terrorism at its zenith

Mr. Gurpal Singh, a resident of Delhi, recently suffered a heavy personal loss in his life, with his father suffering from a heart attack. The reason the old man died an unnatural death was his daughter –in – law threatening to file cases based on false allegations of dowry harassment and related torture. His daughter-in-law had occupied his own house and thrown them out form their own home one year back and subsequently, his father and mother have to make rounds of the court/police to get back their own home, which failed till date. They even had to spend nights at "Gurudwara" in spite of his own home he made for his old time. Unable to bear the burden of a false allegation of a crime as grave as ‘Dowry Harassment’ and the associated stigma and social ostracization, Gurpal’s father succumbed to the pressure.

Every year 70, 000 cases of dowry harassment are filed and if the data compiled by Centre for Social Research is anything to go by, 98 % of such cases are false, void of merit and filed with an adverse motive of extortion, revenge and an intention of settling petty marital discords. In the last four years 95, 000 innocent women have been arrested solely on the base of allegations of dowry harassment, without any trial being ever conducted. When such a case comes to the police station or any so – called women’s organization, the first thing done is to take the whole family into the ambit of suspicion, without verification of the complaint, including small children and senior citizens, and pregnant sisters.

In case a woman dies within seven years of her marriage, the death is viewed with suspicions of dowry related harassment as a de – facto standard and the whole family of the in – laws are thrust into the prison and denied bail. Such fears have risen to such alarmingly high levels in the society that even the mention of such a threat to file a case can drive any person into deep wells of fear and uncertainty. Gurpal’s father also was going through the same mental phase and not being able to take the pressure, suffered from an emotional breakdown and a son lost his father in the most crucial period of his life.

It is highly disheartening to see the pathetic state men and their families are in currently in the society. Living constantly in a fear of false allegations being leveled against them and washing their lives in a whiff of a moment, some commit suicides, some give way to biological irregularities while more others are compelled to give in to unreasonable, unjustified and illogical demands in lieu of not filing a case. Is the value of a man’s life less than the value of a woman’s life, so much so that the society considers taking their lives as ‘Social Service’ and does not feel any need to take some steps to improve conditions. The daughter – in – law of Gurpal’s father is responsible for his sad demise, and charges of abetment of suicide need to be leveled against her and such a blatant misuse of laws deems punishment. Such acts fall no short of Legal Terrorism.

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) an NGO committed to the cause of spreading awareness of this ongoing Legal Terrorism in the society and helping its victims, seeks to demand police intervention in Gurpal’s father’s sad demise and book the offenders for the crimes committed. A man’s life is not to be wasted like this making it a price of unleashing Legal Terrorism and such a loss needs to be compensated with timely justice. It would be absolutely mandatory to reiterate here that as per National Crime Records Bureau’s Data, every year close to 75, 000 men end their lives in suicide, more than double the number of women, yet men have no protection from the law. In addition to that they are subjected to wide and blatant false allegations and victimized under highly biased legal system plagued with lopsided laws.

Gender biased and draconian laws formed on the basis of highly bloated statistics are coming under high scathing as increasingly they are becoming tools to exercise unwarranted power and control. To add to it they have become legal channels of tax - free money extortion sponsored from tax payers’ hard earned money. SIFF condemns such laws and urges the government to take drastic and timely steps to avoid a social catastrophe turning a civilized society into a jungle of state sponsored Legal Terrorism snuffing lives out of innocent citizens in the dusky days.

Unfortunately if this had been the Father of a girl, all channel would had flashed the News, an old father ends his life for Dowry harassment and the husband's father/mother/sisters/child would havae been put behind the bars, but cases such as these always go un-reported, resulting in more and more elder people loosing their life silently, which it seems that not only the government authorities our media friends also believe to be considered as *"Social service of India" as the DIL killed the FIL.

To the President of India

To,
The Honorable President of India,

This is regarding the recent murder of a married woman Rinku Sachdeva by her husband, Amit Buddhiraj, who was an employee of Software Major Infosys
Technologies in Bangalore. Although the whole matter in the media is being
hyped up that he killed his wife suspecting her of having an illicit
relationship with one of her colleagues, but the truth is not that. His
suicide note clearly mentions that he feared that having found out his
wife’s extra marital affair, he was threatened of a false dowry harassment
case. He very well knew that in the current scenario if the wife files a
false dowry harassment case against him and his parents, they will land in
big trouble as the law is totally biased and draconian in nature,
implementation and definition. He had lost faith in the Indian Judiciary and police, and hence an intelligent person like Amit Buddhiraj was compelled to take the law in his hands and he also knew that there is no point in living after that as he is not going to get justice, so he himself committed suicide.

There are thousands of families suffering from false cases filed under Sec
489A and the Domestic Violence Act 2005 and lakhs of families living day in
and day out of a fear of a false case being lodged against them if they do
not accede to the demands of the girl and her parents. Such miscarriage of
justice and abuse of a noble cause for EMPOWERING WOMEN is ruining the
Indian family world over and unleashing a new form of LEGAL TERRORISM on
umpteen number of innocent families.

The family system of India, which has been the crown of the rich and varied
Indian culture is slowly being devoured by a legally patronized and
nourished demon called the FALSE CASES of HARASSMENT. We need to remember
that FALSE ALLEGATIONS of ABUSE are ABUSE. If justice is not meted to those
suffering innocent families trapped in such cases, we will see more and more
people like Amit Buddhiraj taking such extreme steps. Not to mention of the
pain inflicted on the parents of the boy and the girl in their dusky days,
such extreme steps are a big drain on the intellectual property of the
country. Both of them were highly placed professionals and now their lives
and career have been ruined.

I, as a law abiding citizen of India, request the president to kindly look
into the current scenario of the implementation of marital laws, which being
highly gender biased are highly misused by unscrupulous people to their
criminalist advantages. Due to the undue sentimental balance of the
legislative and executive machinery towards a particular class of women,
such laws like 498A, Domestic Violence have become a handy tool to convert
marriage into a business opportunity. Such practices need to be stopped,
condemned and the abusers deemed to be punished to deter other people from
fraying into this obnoxious alley of LEGAL CRIMES.

I urge the Honorable President of India, to take up this matter seriously
and save the Indian Family from dying a premature and unnatural death.

IPC 498A

IPC 498A – The most draconian law ever framed and a provision of the Indian Penal Code highly misused till date has been conferred the honor of breaking Indian families all over the world. From a definition and layman point of view, it seems a very productive and needed law. It has defined HARASSMENT of the MARRIED WOMAN or any of her relatives, herein referred to as harassment, to meet any UNLAWFUL DEMAND by the husband and / or his relatives as a cognizable offence and if proved guilty under trial can lead to imprisonment up to 3 years and / or fine. But all is not said and done with this law. There are gory loopholes in its definition, interpretation and implementation which can have far-reaching consequences legally, ethically, morally, emotionally, socially which are detrimental to the very existence of this society, whose welfare was upheld as the basis in the framing of such a draconian provision. Sounds, strange, ironical, but is surprisingly true as well. Let us have a look at how the law qualifies itself to be placed under the contentious category of DRACONIAN LAWS. We shall start with its definition and loopholes in this article and end with its consequences in the sequel to this one. Remain hooked to this space.

IPC 498A describes the harassment as a

1) Non - Bailable

2) Cognizable

3) Non Compoundable

offence. Now let us have a look into the details of the above terms. The problems with the above aspects of IPC 498A shall be dealt with shortly.

1) Non – Bailable: As soon as the case is made prima – facie, the accused shall be arrested and kept in judicial custody and bail will be given only by a 1^st class metropolitan magistrate, which shall be at the discretion of the magistrate, who shall have the powers to look into the case and decide thereupon.

2) Cognizable: The accused shall be presumed GUILTY until PROVEN INNOCENT. It also puts the burden of proof to innocence on the accused, i.e., if someone has been accused of the UNLAWFUL DEMAND, as described above shall need to prove that such a demand HAS NOT BEEN MADE for acquittal. It also gives the power of arrest to the police without any arrest warrant, who can arrest the accused, if necessary, after proper investigation.

3) Non Compoundable: The complaint, of such a nature, leading to an offence under IPC 498A once made cannot be taken back by the complainant.

Having described the marketable features of this law, we will now proceed to study the loopholes contained therein. But before that let us see, how one can make a case under this law. All it needs is a written / verbal complaint from the MARRIED WOMAN or any of her relatives or any other person on her behalf or any Govt. recognized NGO to the local police against the in – laws of the MARRIED WOMAN. The FIR will be registered by the police after necessary investigation by the police and once the FIR is registered the accused will be required to be arrested and produced before the jurisdictional magistrate within 24 hours.

No where does the law define any provision for verifying the tenacity and genuinity of the complaint made or its nature, nor does it say anything about the penalty of filing a false case under this section and getting innocents arrested and unleashing a mayhem of mental torture on them. These two aspects compounded with the above definitive aspects of this law are the prime deciding factors which have been contributing to its wide and rampant misuse by unscrupulous people looking for an opportunity to make a cut by falsely implicating innocents and bargaining with them for money or other demands.

As it is very easy to file a case under this section, and very hard for the accused to get a bail or avoid the case being filed against them without acceding to the demands of the complainant and all the more hard to get the accused convicted given the loose interpretive definition of a plethora of terms in its definition, the most feasible route to use this law to ones criminalist advantages is to file a false complaint against husband and in – laws and get them arrested and fake a physical injury to deny bail to the accused in order to break them down morally and spiritually so that the fear of a trial in spite of being innocent, subsequent potential conviction and the killing fear of social ostracism drives them to a compromise and then the case is quashed, or settled out of the court. This seemingly lucrative possibility of the out of the court settlement, ending in a monetary transaction from the righteous to the not so righteous, is the most attractive bonanza acting as the lifeblood of the virus called FALSE DOWRY CASE which gives unscrupulous and anti – family elements to get their way ahead legally and be termed as a COMPLAINANT and HARASSED and COMPENSATED after the monetary settlement is executed.

We will now examine the loopholes in this law which has led to such a wide magnitude of misuse of this law spanning geographies, Diaspora and time zones as has been corroborated by statistics and figures by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which show that 98 % of the cases are false and yet every four minutes a husband is arrested, every day an innocent child is arrested and every three hours a senior citizen is thrust unto jail under this section.

1) Case gets registered on a mere complaint. Nowadays it is not very uncommon that girls are forced to marry by their parents to well settled, nicely educated, high profile, wonderfully placed, money minting ATM machines, and these parents of the girls also spend lavishly in the marriage viewing it from a ROI (Returns on Investments) point of view. No sooner after the marriage the girl realizes that she is no longer happy in the marriage because the DREAMS she was shown prior to the marriage by her parents (often to convince her for the marriage) are mere DREAMS never meant to be realized, she starts complaining and the girls’ parents too think it as an opportunity knocking and start planning a case against the guy and his family. This sets the background for the case which gets registered sooner or later on a mere complaint. Since the innocent guy is busy shredding his perspiration giving his best shot at keeping his ATM machine full, he is caught totally unaware when the disaster strikes, let alone his parents who might not have dreamed such an ordeal even in the wildest of their nightmares, and in majority of the cases, the metamorphosis of a happily married man to a legal fighter dies prematurely and the matter ends with a monetary compromise.

2) As a monetary settlement is a very easy way out, even the executors of the legislative and the executive machinery in the law and order scenario, eyeing an opportunity in the available CUT, this misuse is patronized by them leading to its legalization under the false paradoxical sugar coated veil of WOMAN EMPOWERMENT and LIBERATION OF WOMEN. Also the Apex Court has now named this ongoing misuse as LEGAL TERRORISM.

3) Long live the Indian Legal System (still living in the dark ages), cases remain pending for years and are not settled, so the outcome of the trial happens like one in a million, hence conviction being next to impossible, the girls’ side in tandem with the legislative and executive machinery squeeze out the juice from the Man’s purse and have a field day.

4) The reason for initiating such a case as explained in the first point is just one of the many reasons leading to filing of such cases. There can be umpteen number of such reasons like, adultery, extra – marital affair, unwanted pregnancy, incestuous relationship of the girl with some of her family member, unexplained desire for no interference and financial control, extreme greed, leveling of petty marital discords under the devilish influence of false ego, pre-marital undisclosed mental disorders like Bipolar Disease, Borderline Personality Disorder, Delusional Disorder, Extreme mood swings to name a few. Under such scenarios it becomes very handy for the girls and their families to file a FALSE DOWRY CASE and get out of the marriage having made an obnoxious and inauspicious fortune.

5) But whatever be the reason, the undue sentimental balance of the legislative and executive machinery towards a particular class of women, the ease with which the case can be filed, the ease with which, on the basis of mere complaint of a lady, whose character and integrity remains to be questioned, one whole family ranging from small innocent children to pregnant sisters to aged, dependent and ailing parents are held at ransom and made to undergo unprecedented and uncalled for fury, wrath, torture, harassment, humiliation, character assassination, and many more atrocities, is also one of the major contributing factors to the spread of this family breaking disease called FALSE DOWRY CASE.

6) When we are small, we are taught many things by our parents, and other elders in the family. And sometimes it becomes necessary that we are punished as well to ensure that certain forbidden actions are never repeated nor a habit is made out of them. But as they say, TRUTH is STRANGER than FICTION, there is no, absolutely no punishment for filing a FALSE DOWRY CASE committing a crime of such a heinous nature. Rather, on the contrary, our honorable ministers are passing away the misuse falsely as a minor percentage and citing, “Mistake of facts” as the reason for the MINOR MISUSE they say is happening around. Will be covering more on the “Mistake of facts” syndrome in the sequel. This absence of punishment for alleging abuse falsely is the next major factor breast – feeding the monster called FALSE DOWRY CASE. The girls’ side very well knows that they have nothing to loose absolutely and hence they are all the more salivated to taste this piece of cake like a Labrador eyeing a bone.

7) On a brief note, the next reason lubricating the machinery of this racket of legal terrorism and legal extortion is the violation of the basic Human Rights Principle advocated by Amnesty International regarding the presumption of guilt on part of the accused. It says, the accused are to presumed INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, while this law presumes GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT.

These are just some of the loopholes explained in brief which have cumulatively led to the spread of this disease called FALSE DOWRY CASE. There can be many more such loopholes which I might have missed / overlooked. Rest remains to be seen are the consequences of this misuse which will be covered shortly in the next article arriving at the nearest explorer very soon. Keep watching this space.

Wife's trivial complaint costs life of the Husband, the Police ensures that

Hubby booked by wife: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Hubby_booked_by_wife/articleshow/1411906.cms
[ 24 Jan, 2007 0257hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES ]

Patna & Madhepura, Bihar, India: Little did Prabhash Kumar Singh's wife know that a trivial complaint she had lodged against her husband a few days ago, accusing him of torture and assault, would cost his life.

On Monday, Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Shivshankar Chaudhary of the Alamnagar Police Station of the District of Madhepura picked up Prabhash from Khurhan village in connection with case. After arriving at the police station, he demanded Rs 10,000 from Prabhash to "settle" the case.

Prabhash pleaded that the matter had been amicable settled by the local panchayat and that there was no reason to pursue the case.

This enraged the ASI who continued to rain blows and kicks on Prabhash until he slumped to the ground. The cop then dumped the victim in the lock-up where he succumbed to his injuries. On learning about his death, the ASI fled the scene.

Interestingly, Brajesh Kumar was the Investigating Officer (I.O.) of the case and Chaudhary had no right to poke his nose into it. Victim's younger brother Ranjeet Kumar claimed that Prabhash was brutally beaten in full public view. "He (Prabhash) was beaten senseless and dumped in the lock-up," he said.

Madhepura District Magistrate (DM) Rajesh Kumar later visited the spot and ordered a magisterial inquiry into the matter. Sources said that a Police Complaint (First Information Report or FIR) was lodged against three policemen who were eventually suspended.

Meanwhile, a team of doctors conducted the post-mortem examination on the victim's body at the Madhepura Sadar hospital. The viscera of the body will be sent to Patna for chemical examination.

Earlier, agitated villagers prevented the police from taking the body into their possession. They sought action against the guilty. The villagers relented after senior police officers assured them of proper action at the earliest.