Dowry prohibition laws: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
Dowry prohibition laws: misuse of
‘Dowry law can’t be tool to harass’
New Delhi: A court here has observed that dowry prohibition law cannot be allowed to become a tool for harassment. Granting relief to a man, who was booked in a dowry harassment case by his wife, the court ordered investigation against the complainant for filing a false case.
The man's wife in July 2012 filed an FIR againsthim in a south Delhi police station, alleging that he demanded dowry and subjected her to cruelty, which resulted in her miscarriage. Police investigated the complaint and filed a cancellation report, giving a clean chit to the accused.
Metropolitan Magistrate Ms Shivani Chauhan, accepting the cancellation report of Delhi Police, said, "Under no circumstances can it be permitted to become a tool for harassment of innocent persons."
During the investigation it was revealed that it was the woman's second marriage and there was no evidence of dissolution of the first. The woman alleged cruelty by the man which had resulted in her miscarriage. But the court noted that the investigation report showed she had voluntarily got the medical termination of her pregnancy. AGENCIES
Surpeme court on the misuse of the dowry law
SC: Dowry law misused, stop automatic arrests
Dhananjay Mahapatra New Delhi: TNN
The Times of India Jul 03 2014
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said women were increasingly using the anti-dowry law to harass in-laws and restrained police from mechanically arresting the husband and his relatives on the mere lodging of a complaint under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code.
Citing very low conviction rate in such cases, it directed state governments to instruct police “not to automatically arrest when a case under Section 498A of IPC is registered but to satisfy themselves about the necessity for arrest under the parameters (check list) provided under Section 41 of Criminal Procedure Code”. Section 41 lays down a nine-point check list for police to weigh the need to arrest after examining the conduct of the accused, including possibility of absconding.
If police arrested the accused, “the magistrate, while authorizing detention of the accused shall peruse the report furnished by the police officer in terms of Section 41 and only after recording its satisfaction...will authorize detention,” the bench of Justices C K Prasad and P C Ghose said.
I t also said that this check list for arrest and deten tion would apply to all offences, which are punished with a prison term less than 7 years. Punishment under Section 498A is a maximum of three years but it had been made a cognizable and nonbailable offence, which made grant of bail to the accused a rarity in courts.
But the court singled out the dowry harassment cases as the most abused and misused provision, though the legislature had enacted it with the laudable object to prevent harassment of women in matrimonial homes.
Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Prasad said there had been a phenomenal increase in dowry harass ment cases in India in the last few years. “The fact that Section 498A is a cognizable 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,” he said.
“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 grand-fathers and grandmothers of the husbands, their sisters living abroad for decades are arrested,“ he said.
The Times of India’s View For long now, concerns have been expressed about stringent anti-dowry laws being misused by some women to harass or blackmail their in-laws. These apprehensions have not only been expressed by courts, women's activists too have acknowledged that such misuse is not unknown. It was, therefore, necessary for the law to take this reality into account.
The apex court's order does just that. Automatic arrest was one of the provisions that lent itself most to abuse and making it mandatory for a magistrate to sanction arrest should help curb this abuse of law. Beyond that, there's a lesson for all of us ¬ social ills can't be eliminated just by enacting laws, as India tends to do. Society as a whole needs to join the movement against them.
Supreme Court’s guidelines for arrests in dowry cases
SC enforces guidelines for arrests in dowry cases
New Delh
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
The Times of India Jul 04 2014
Cops Face Action If They Fail To Follow `Dos & Don'ts' List
The Supreme Court has warned the police of departmental action and contempt proceedings if they do not follow the checklist in the Criminal Procedure Code mandating them to weigh the need to arrest a person accused of dowry harassment.
A bench of Justices CK Prasad and PC Ghose said police must follow the `Dos and Don'ts' prescribed under Section 41 of CrPC before arresting a person in an offence punishable with less than seven years of imprisonment on being found guilty.
The checklist mandates that a person accused of such an offence can be arrested if the police officer is satisfied that it was necessary:
to prevent such person from committing any further offence for proper investigation of the case
to prevent the accused from causing disappearance of evidence
to prevent the accused from tampering with evidence
to prevent the person from inducing, threatening or luring the witness
to dissuade him/her from disclosing facts to police officer or the court
to prevent the accused from absconding
to secure his presence before the court during the hearing
The bench said the law mandated the police officer to record reasons in writing why he came to the conclusion that arrest was necessary and that he had satisfied himself with each and every provision of the checklist. Justice Prasad, writing the judgment, said: “In pith and core, the police officer before arrest must put a question to himself, why arrest?
Is it really required? What purpose it will serve/What object will it achieve?
“Before arrest, first the police officers should have reason to believe on the basis of information and material that the accused has committed the offence. Apart from this, the police officer has to be satisfied further that the arrest is necessary for one or the more purposes envisaged under Section 41.“ If the police arrest and produce a person before a magistrate, and if he finds the arrest was in breach of the checklist, then he “is duty-bound not to authorize further detention and release the accused“, the bench said.
The court said the legislature had inserted Section 41 in CrPC to “avoid unnecessary arrest or threat of arrest looming large on accused“. This provision asks police to issue a notice to the accused specifying the time and date for his appearance for purpose of investigation. If the accused complies and cooperates with the investigation, he would not be arrested.
Sc said if cops scrupulously adhered to the Section 41 mandate, then “the wrong committed by police officers intentionally or unwittingly would be reversed and the number of cases which come to the court for grant of anticipatory bail will substantially reduce“.
