Present Status of Section 498 A
When first enacted in 1961, the law sought to protect women from being killed or tortured in their marital homes by greedy husbands and in-laws. Thereafter, passionate advocacy by women’s rights activists resulted in the insertion of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, making the offence of dowry harassment cognizable and non-bailable, thereby bringing enormous relief to women who face virtually insurmountable obstacles in the public space, especially when taking complaints to the police or facing long-winded judicial proceedings.
In a sense, Section 498A sought to level the playing field and further ensure the safety of women. However, as with all laws relating to women, the patriarchal, self-fulfilling argument that Section 498A had created a bunch of monstrous, disgruntled women determined to destroy family values and drag innocent husbands and in-laws to jail for their own nefarious purposes began to dominate the discourse.
Need for Improvisation
Earlier in 2014 judgment of the Supreme Court which mandated a nine-point checklist before any arrests could be made under Section 498A. Then followed the latest Supreme Court judgment mandates a family welfare committee in every district to scrutinize dowry harassment cases .Members of this committee can be social workers or “anyone interested in the subject” and may also be paid an honorarium. The police are expected to consider the recommendations of this committee before making any arrest. The Supreme Court has also done away with the need for the accused to make a personal appearance in court in addition to other forms of relief.
It happened because there was a perceived notion that many false cases and being filed just to prove one as a victim.
Sadly, the actual victim seems to remains ignored in the judgment. As a result of these constraints, thousands of genuinely distressed women were not able to access justice. Women victims, it would appear, become victims only if they die. While still alive, getting justice may actually be subjected to scrutiny.
Perversely, but predictably, the attention of the judges, and indeed of a large section of society, is directed solely towards the alleged, perceived “misuse” of the section by “unscrupulous” women. Ironically, the concern is leavened by a crumb of concern about women, in this case the women who are “wrongly” arrested under Section 498A — the mothers and sisters-in-law. The judges observe that women who ought to use Section 498A as a shield are actually using it as a weapon against their unfortunate in-laws, going so far as to say “this court earlier noticed the fact that most of such complaints are filed in the heat of the moment, over trivial issues”, thus leading to “harassment of the accused”..
In fact, the statistics cited by the judges took note of the earlier observation of Justice C.K. Prasad that in 2012 two lakh arrests were made under Section 498A, including 47,951 women. Although chargesheets were filed in 93.6% of the cases, the conviction rate was only 14.4%. Based on this, the judges conclude that the complaints were frivolous and “trivial”.
The verdict of the Supreme Court in Rajesh Sharma &Ors.vs. State of Uttar Pradesh[ needs to be analyzed because it holds victims of violence guilty of misusing the law. In Rajesh Sharma, the court has not indicated any specific error committed by a court below. Instead of identifying the errors, the court mentions that “there is a tendency to rope in all the family members”. The court mentions the statement of the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) that there is a growing tendency to abuse the provisions of the law, and mentions data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to create a foundation that there is widespread misuse of the law.
The Supreme Court relied on Sushil Kumar Sharma vs. Union of India, Preeti Gupta vs. State of Jharkhand, Ramgopal vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, and Savitri Devi vs. Ramesh Chand[, to strengthen the point that there is a need to adopt measures to prevent such misuse.
Further The Supreme Court again modified its July 2017 order, which roped in retirees, wives of “working officers” and social workers to shift genuine complaints of dowry harassment from the frivolous ones.
In 2017, the court ordered that ‘family welfare committees’ to be set up in districts. These committees, comprising choice citizens, were supposed to act as a vanguard against “disgruntled wives” using the anti-dowry harassment provision of Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as a “weapon” against their husbands and in-laws, young and old, rather than as a “shield”.
Even the police, as per the order, could register an FIR only after the committee concerned cleared the complaint as valid and not frivolous.
A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra held that such panels or committee had no place under the established criminal procedural law. They were beyond the Code of Criminal Procedure Code.
With this, the Bench, also comprising Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, has restored to the police their power to immediately register an FIR and act on a dowry harassment complaint filed by a married woman.
Chief Justice Misra observed that the Bench of Justices A.K. Goel (now retired) and U.U. Lalit, which passed the order, merely wanted to craft a fair and reasonable procedure for complaints under Section 498-A.
But Chief Justice Misra rationalized that the blame does not lie with Section 498-A, which was introduced in 1983 by Parliament to protect hapless married women against dowry menace. The evil lay in the misuse of arrest powers by the police “who behave like emperors considering the notion that they can do what they please”.
Section 498-A IPC is cognisable and non-bailable offence. A guilty person faces up to three years in prison.
Chief Justice Misra agreed with the order to have a designated police officer to probe dowry complaints. It had ordered the Director General of Police of every State to provide such officers rigorous training.
The Chief Justice however differed with Justice Goel’s direction to empower district judges to close dowry harassment cases if the parties reached out-of-court settlement. Instead, the parties would now have to approach the High Court concerned for quashing of the complaint filed by the married woman.
The three-judge Bench also held that accused persons should apply for exemption from personal appearance in dowry harassment hearings.
It is quite clear that :
As
we are moving towards 2030 perspiring to achieve Gender Equality the framed
cases based on biasness need also to be tackled on the basis of merit. In the
long run we must try to understand Gender Neutrality as a core concept and
bring up the ideas for formation of an environment based on mutual trust and
respect for all genders not only male or female.