Women misusing dowry law - Indian court
5 July BBC
India's Supreme Court has said that women are increasingly misusing
the tough anti-dowry law to harass their husbands and in-laws.
The judges said the law was enacted to help women, but it was being
used as "a weapon by disgruntled wives".The court has now ordered the
police to follow a nine-point checklist before arresting anyone on a
dowry complaint.Correspondents say dowry offences are a serious issue in
India where more than 8,000 women are killed every year.Paying and
accepting dowry is a centuries-old South Asian tradition where the
bride's parents gift cash, clothes and jewellery to the groom's family.
The practice has been illegal in India since 1961, but it continues
to thrive and campaigners say it leaves women vulnerable to domestic
violence and even death.To prevent dowry deaths and harassment of brides
in their matrimonial homes, India introduced a tough anti-dowry law
Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code in 1983.A complaint under the law
allows for immediate arrest and jailing of the accused, often the
husband and his family members, but campaigners say the provision is
frequently misused with many women filing false cases.
"The fact that Section 498A is a cognisable and non-bailable offence
has lent it a dubious place of pride amongst the provisions that are
used as weapons rather than shield by disgruntled wives," the two-judge
bench of Justices CK Prasad and PC Ghose said in its order on Wednesday.
The simplest way to harass is to get the husband and his relatives
arrested under this provision. In a quite number of cases, bed-ridden
grandfathers and grandmothers of the husbands, their sisters living
abroad for decades are arrested," it added.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau statistics, nearly
200,000 people, including 47,951 women, were arrested over dowry
offences in 2012, but only 15% of the accused were convicted, the court
said.
Expressing concern over the misuse of the law, the judges ordered the
police "not to automatically arrest" an accused, but to go through a
"nine-point checklist" to "satisfy themselves about the necessity for
arrest".And if the police make an arrest, a magistrate must approve
further detention of the accused, the court ruled. |