Anti dowry laws: Boon or a Curse???? : NAACHGAANA

Anti dowry laws: Boon or a Curse????

June 18th, 2008

Dowry is something which doesn’t even raise an eyebrow in India. You go to a wedding and most of the time you will find people what parents are giving to “their daughter”. “Ek gaddi diti hai, Skoda, 15 lakh cash te killo sona” I have heard this line may be millions of times….. In many communities there are “Fixed price” grooms, who get dowry according to their degrees. Engineer 50 Lakh, Doctors 75 Lakhs, NRI 1 Cr. Choice is yours, no EMI allowed, though the in-laws might ask for more as and when the need arises.

But then worry not, you have 498 A of IPC aka Anti Dowry Law. These laws in India are also pretty stringent, only a complaint is good enough to land up the accused in jail. It was a powerful tool devised to save millions of women across the length and breadth of India from greedy in-laws.

The law’s most powerful feature is that it gives an instant relief to complainant, or the victim as we should call. Any woman living surrounded by greedy people, for whom a car might have more importance than even the life of that woman, must have a law like this to protect her.

But after presenting this picture to you all, I want to ask a question to all of you…. Are these laws used for what they are meant to be????? is there really any relief to the victim or accused???? is there any way of indetifying the victim in this case????? and how fair it is to put a person behind the bars when there is no conclusive evidence is there to prove any charge????? Even murderers at times have more rights than a person alledged to ask for dowry.

Manier times I have seen this law being misused by girls and her parents. All of a sudden girl recalls her past love…. put anti dowry case, ask for divorce and boom she is free, only person left with a noose around his neck is the guy against whom the complaint has been lodged. Something happened, girl decides she is incompatible with the guy, her husband, there comes anti dowry case. Put the charge on 15 members of husband’s family, and they are all behind the bars begging for some mercy from the girl and her parents.

Law is devised to give some blanket of protection to women who are subjugated to many physical and mental tortures by her in-laws so as to get a “little” more from the girl’s side at the time of marriage or later on when “Kaku” decides to put up a “factory”. But last year itself government submitted a report in which it was reported that 11,300, false anti-dowry cases were filled across India.

Its not that all the cases filled are false, but almost all of them are blown heavily out of proportions just to make their case stronger. Even many lawyers have suggested that this law is also used by many women to break away from the joint family structure. Put the complaint against your sister-in-laws, brother-in-laws, compromise, take “hissa” in the property (factories and house both) and settle around 10 KMs away from all the “jhik-jhik of joint families”.

To quote a judge on the matter

Justice Shiv Narayan Dhingra recently said, “Every failed marriage is not a crime. However, the law is being used to convert failed marriages into a crime and people use it as a tool to extract as much monetary benefit as possible. The FIRs are withdrawn once the payment is received by the complainant,”

The law can be used as a tool to “punish” the husbandseven when its the wife who is wrong, because generally the whole judiciary and police are often find sympethizing with the woman.

Also I want to mention that not every woman who has pressed 498 A against her in-laws wants to get divorced from her husband, but can a husband forget the humiliation of being locked up along with his family for right or wrong reasons???? So in a way don’t this law make sure the divorce rather than a married life free of all these evils, which was the prime aim of the law????

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry_law_in_India

http://goodcritic.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/12/misuse-of-anti-dowry-law-increasing-in-india.htm

http://reportmaritalproblems.blogspot.com/2006/06/misuse-of-anti-dowry-laws-in-marital.html

And OFC many experiences around me….. (Not that I am married or charged with 498, before you make any assumptions :P)

There Are 7 Responses So Far. »

Comment by rks on 18 June 2008:

Kunal: Genuine concern. The problem is not the law but the system and implemetation. There must be penalty for wrong complain.
Comment by Kunal27 on 19 June 2008:

Well I guess you hit the nail on the head Rks, law is as good or as bad as the system implementing it.

Only problem is that proving the allegation is so hard that even police at times can’t do much. An allegation of demand of any dowry can only be confirmed by the woman alone. Her own word can actually be the deciding factor in this case.
Comment by Tango on 19 June 2008:

There is a lot of misuse, especially in below-the-poverty line sector.

A good intention going wrong.
Comment by Ravi on 19 June 2008:

IMO the misuse is very miniscule % wise compared to the actual cases that happen, and just because they sound sensational the misuse cases are sensationalized.
Comment by Kunal27 on 19 June 2008:

Ravi here are some facts of this law, which you might find startling to say the least:

Indian constitution and law are devised with the logic of “Innocent until proven otherwise”, manier times you would even hear people talking about things like “1 innocent must not be punished and for that we are ready to let 99 guilty go scot free”, Anti Dowry Law is the only law which states “guilty until proven innocent”

Key features of the law:

1) Cognizable - The accused can be arrested and jailed without warrant or investigation
2) Non-Bailable - The accused must appear in the court to request bail
3) Non-Compoundable - The complaint cannot be withdrawn by the petitioner

So the onus lies on those who are accused to prove their innocence, which is something really hard. According to Hindu marriage act, all gifts, jewellery, or assets given to the bride are her own, whereas this law can be used to show each and every gift to groom as a dowry.

When an FIR (First Information Report) under IPC section 498A (anti-dowry law) is registered by a woman, the accused - the husband and his old parents, brothers, sisters, relatives - are arrested and jailed without investigation.

Whereas The Supreme Court of India has ruled several times that arrest should be an exception, and not compulsory.

Now lets talk about “low” percentage of false cases
Latest Statistics Published on IBN-CNN.

*In 2004, 58,319 dowry cases were registered.
*10,491 dowry cases were not charge sheeted as they were based on frivolous ground.

Now simple mathematics;
That is 17% of total cases filed were frivolous, hence in 17% of cases police made some random arrests which shouldn’t have been in the first place.
I don’t think so 17% is miniscule by any means.

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/tortured-hubbies-victims-of-498a/27446-3.html : Source

Now is it over??? no way
sample this
There were 2432 cases in 2005, of them, only 164 cases led to convictions. 1449 cases ended in acquittal with the women considering further appeals.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/full_story.php?content_id= 79802

so nearly 60% of times court thought that the charges were baseless.

Now tell me about low percentage of misue of Anti Dowry laws….
Comment by Ravi on 19 June 2008:

Kunal I understand what you are saying bro, but here goes my thought process.

My question is in millions of marriages, you are bringing in a few thousand where people have files these cases and we really do not know how many of them are frivolous. Why, would a woman having a nice and happy married life(like I hope my wife and others that we know are) would go and file a complaint against her husband or in laws or any one else. The only reason that she would do is, either if she is really being abused(which I would say would be a huge majority of the time) or if she wanted to take revenge against them for some reason(which would be in my humble opinion a very small %).

No law is perfect, what we would like any law to be , is to be as fool proof as it can be. As long as it accomplishes what it sets out to ,which is to put some sort of fear in the minds of people who do this thing and act as a deterrent, event though there might be some people who misuse it(which is true in any thing in life) then the law has accomplished what it set out to do so.

This in my case is very similar to domestic violence thing in the US(which unfortunately from what I know is there in India too , but not sure if there is any law protecting them) wherein once a 911 call goes out for spousal abuse, the cops and the system presume you guilty(Q bhai help me out here) and it is very difficult for you to get out of that. So, do we think that all the cases of spousal abuse(99.99999 % of the time, we know who abuses who) there is no misuse? I don’t think so , but compared to what it achieves the misuse is a very small % and acts as a huge deterrent because it is difficult for one to get out of that.

One of my friends sister was killed for this crap almost 20 years ago and I am talking of personal experience here.

Generally in our society over the ages, woman have always been looked down and harassed, used , abused , shared as spoils of war and so on. So, anything that is for the betterment of them will go a long way to get the equality going (which still exists though in a subtle manner). So, for a few cases(% wise) of misuse , let us look at the benefits it gets.
Comment by Kunal27 on 19 June 2008:

As such Ravi I really think that when more than 60% of accused husbands are getting acquittal every year, but still had to go through some torrid times for upto 3 days behind the bars, just on the basis of an FIR, I think law needs to be looked into.

I am not talking about happily married couples here, but think about those whose marriage is not working out for various reasons. Cheating spouse, non compatibility issues, snoring, physical abuse, lack of sex life or whatever, most of the women take the best tool in their hand, put the anti dowry case against the guy and boom.

when 60% are getting acquitted, it means 60% of times courts find that husband was wrongly accused of the charges, and this is not a few percentage, so why to put him behind the bars just on the basis of one person’s word.

Isn’t it a kind of sxism only???? Punishing a guy just because he is a guy?

There have been many voices in the past regarding this and by every passing day, more and more people are asking for a reformed law.

I am not against the law, but the fact that accused are put behind the bars straightaway without giving it a second thought. Anti Dowry law is the need of the hour, but its present form is not really solving the purpose but is proving out to be more of a vindictive measure.

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