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Supreme court warned------------- Police and magistrates

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False complaint by wife against husband for arrest on increase with the police into corruption:
The problem with section 498A Supreme Court has observed Section 498A has ‘dubious pride of place among the provisions that are used as weapons rather than shield by disgruntled wives’  
 Even lawyers advise wives to use this section so that they can reach a settlement soon.”
Section 498A regarding marriage disputes has been getting a bad rap in recent times over allegations of its misuse. for subjecting their wives to cruelty. “I spoke to so many people who had been trapped by section 498A,” says Vakharia
 “I found that the section had become a tool of legal extortion and blackmail.” 
The problems began, recalls Vakharia, soon after his marriage in 1999. His wife wanted to move from Akola to Bangalore, didn’t want to live with the joint family and wanted him to loan some money to her family, he says. When he refused, she filed a complaint under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which seeks to protect women from harassment by husbands and their families and carries a punishment of up to three years. Vakharia spent five days in jail in 2004 after seeking anticipatory bail for other members of his family, including his mother, a cancer patient. “Because of this section, wives can send old mothers-in-law to jail. Later, when I would go for my court dates, I realized how many other husbands were in the same position as I was,” he said. One of the founders of the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), Vakharia is happy about a Supreme Court judgement that came out last week in which the court observed that Section 498A has “dubious pride of place amongst the provisions that are used as weapons rather than shield by disgruntled wives.” Noting that the “simplest way to harass is to get the husband and his relatives arrested”, a bench of justices C.K. Prasad and P.K. Ghose issued directions that restrains police from automatic arrests on the mere lodging of a complaint. Police must first “satisfy themselves about the necessity of arrest”, said the judges, and then get a magistrate to sanction the arrest. The new directions apply to not just 498A, but any arrest that carries a sentence of less than seven years in jail. Section 498A has been getting a bad rap in recent times over allegations of its misuse. Citing National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2012, the judges noted that 6% of all arrests made across the country were made under this section. That works out to two lakh arrests, nearly a quarter of which were of women. However, even the apex court noted, the misuse often arises when an over-zealous police jumps in to make an arrest without first conducting an investigation. “The moment someone files a first information report (FIR), the first thing the police does is to make an arrest,” says Mrinal Satish, associate professor of law at the National Law University, Delhi. This is despite a section introduced in 2010 that makes it necessary for police to give the reasons for an arrest in any case involving a punishment of less than seven years in jail. History Today, it’s easy to forget the spate of horrific headlines of dowry deaths, then described as ‘bride burning’ or disguised as kitchen accidents, that preceded the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1983. A sustained anti-dowry movement resulted in an expanded definition of dowry to include inducements given before and after marriage, the shift of the burden of proof to the person being prosecuted, mandatory police investigation into all dowry complaints and penal sections to deal with cruelty by the husband and his kin. Dowry deaths had become so frequent that any unnatural death of a woman within seven years of marriage was deemed to be grounds for investigation under the new law. Despite these stringent provisions, the practice of giving dowry—and dowry deaths—continue. The judgment looked at NCRB figures of arrest under section 498A for 2012, but did not mention the increase in the number of dowry deaths—a 20% rise between 2001 and 2012. Yet, in 2012, only 14% of dowry deaths had been disposed of by the courts, finds a recent IndiaSpend report. In other words, while dowry deaths have been increasing, the number of convictions has remained more or less the same over the past decade. Is section 498A misused by women? “There is a tendency to misuse these provisions,” concedes Malavika Rajkotia, whose primary legal practice is family law. “But just because a law can be misused does not mean the law should be diluted.” Another lawyer Rebecca John says: “I am not suggesting that this law has not been misused. But the misuse comes most often from the class that tends to misuse all laws.” The problem with divorce cases, say lawyers, is that cases tend to drag on for years, and even when they reach their conclusion, fair settlements, particularly in a country where income and assets can be concealed by proxy ownerships and joint family holdings, are hard to come by. “Women tend to use section 498A as leverage to get financial settlements and short-circuit dilatory court proceedings,” explains Rajkotia, adding that she personally does not find that this is an effective strategy. “The threat of an arrest might be effective, but once an arrest is made, then husbands don’t care. So, it’s a bad strategy,” she says. “Every law is misused,” says Mrinal Satish. “Terror cases result in acquittals after dragging on for 15 years. But does anyone suggest that we get rid of terror laws?” Satish points out that the IPC already has provisions against those who file false complaints. “False information with the intent to cause a public servant to use his lawful powers to cause injury to another person is punishable by six months in jail,” he says. Lawyers have, by and large, welcomed the Supreme Court judgment that asks for an inquiry before arrest into all offences that carry less than sentences less than seven years in jail. “It basically tells cops that they must do their job and conduct investigations before an arrest,” says Rajkotia. But John is dismayed by the language of the judgment that makes blanket assumptions about ”disgruntled housewives”. “You can see the bias of the judiciary here, and I am surprised that there is no similar outrage when the state routinely misuses the law as in cases of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.” Yet, everyone agrees that the misuse of a law, regardless of why it happens, is bad. “Women who really need the protection of the law, who face daily abuse from drunken husbands, have no access to the legal system,” says John. Is there a way out? Surprisingly, both SIFF’s Rajesh Vakharia and lawyers agree that easier divorce could be a solution. “Under the law, divorce is not easy,” says Vakharia. “This results in the filing of false complaints and the harassment of husbands and their families.” If the courts made it easier for men and women to obtain divorce, the filing of false complaints would fall, he says. “The courts are constantly pushing towards mediation in matrimonial matters,” says Satish. “When you try and push people towards mediation, 498A ends up becoming the leverage. Even lawyers advise wives to use this section so that they can reach a settlement soon.”



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