A story of how an Congress government’s law is destroying the careers of youth, causing suicide of an innocent every nine minutes and tearing away reputation of law abiding families….. section 498A IPC!
Let me be honest with you. I was a feminist until last year. I used to unequivocally support the dowry laws, Domestic violence laws for women empowerment. I used to get pissed off whenever I came across a news article on domestic violence and dowry. But, there always exists other side of the story which often gets ignored.
Fortunately, there’s a basic principle in law “AUDI ALTREM PARTEM – Listen the other side”. And yes, there exists the other side – which often gets unnoticed. The husband’s side. The stories are almost the same everywhere.
There’s one happy family. Boy completes his education, starts his own business or gets a new job. Everyone in his family wants him to get married. He gets married. Everyone is happy. But his wife and her parents have different plans. She elopes with precious jewellery to her matrimonial house and also threatens husband and in- laws by weaponizing the matrimonial laws. Husband and his family surrender and fulfil the demands. But story doesn’t ends here.
The demands keep on rising. Boy and his parents just cannot afford to fulfill their demands. FIR is registered at police stations by cunning family members of wife. Police officials directly start abusing husband’s family without any evidence or proper investigation. Husband’s family, which is completely unaware of what wrong they have done, undergoes severe depression and anxiety. It even results in destruction of career of young and aspiring boys of this nation. More than 60,000 married young men have lost their lives due to unprecedented crisis in one year.
All these incidents result in breaking apart families, suicides by innocent husbands and overall loss in faith towards our judicial and law enforcement system. Several movies, documentaries and even SC judgments in this regard clearly indicate the wide misuse of section 498a, Domestic Violence act.
Supreme court in its “Arnesh Kumar vs. State of Bihar” judgment clearly states that, “498-A 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. The simplest way to harass is to get the husband and his relatives arrested under this provision.” The rate of charge- sheeting in cases under 498-A is as high as 94% but conviction rate is only 15%, which is lowest across all heads.
But mere judgements and guidelines of higher courts are unable to change the ground problem. The misuse of these laws brings humiliation to several law abiding innocent families, it curtails freedom cast scars forever. Law makers know it so also the police.
Unfortunately, it seems that police has not learnt its lesson. Police has, infact, not came out of its colonial mindset and directly abuses the accused as well as his family. This brings suicidal thoughts in minds of young husbands as they cannot bear the humiliation inflicted upon their families.
Feminism had begun as an ideology to confer certain fundamental rights to women. Unfortunately, it has changed to “Feminazism” in the recent past. To reassure Indian judiciary about the ground realities, I humbly request every judicial officer to watch a documentary by Ms. Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj – “Martyrs of marriage’’ available free on YouTube. This will definitely help you all in saving hundreds of innocent lives.
section 498A IPC.
Prasad S. Joshi
Read other article : The Deepfake Dilemma
Much needed article for men who are suffering. No doubt women are misusing Article 498 to threaten in laws family which totally ruins them.