File cases for giving dowry

In most of the 498A complaints lodged against husbands it is found that the girl's family says, " We gave X amount of dowry" added with the allegation that it was demanded. However, dowry giving is also an equal crime as per Section 3 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 as much as abetting it is. Even witnesses give their statements that they saw the dowry being given.

Please remember if there is a case against you and your family for demanding and taking dowry on the basis of the statements given by complainant wife and her well-wishers, then a similar case for giving and abetting also needs to be registered against the complainant wife and her well-wishers for being parties to giving dowry and abetting its exchange.

Some key points to be noted however,

1. Filing a case for "Giving Dowry" against complainant wife and her well-wishers does not mean tacit admission of "Taking Dowry" because there is a difference between giving and taking. For taking to happen, giving is a mandatory condition but the reverse is not true. For all practical purposes the dowry could be offered by dowry givers and the people offered can reject to take it. However, in this case the crime of Dowry Giving and Abetment of Dowry giving has happened and the people involved therein need to be prosecuted for this. 

2. For the 498A cases mentioned, there is prima facie evidence available in the form of "Voluntary Confessional Admission" by the complainant wife and her well-wishers that they gave dowry.

3. Although Section 7 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 does provide immunity to the complainant against prosecution but remember, that the immunity is available only in that instance of Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 under which case of "Dowry demand and taking" is running. This means that we cannot arraign the accused in the same case under section 319 of the CrPC. However, nothing stops the husband from filing a new case based on their confessional admission. And in that case the husband (complainant herein) shall be provided the immunity.

Keeping in mind all these points, all the husbands who are facing false allegations of dowry demand and dowry taking against them have a moral bound duty to get the Section 3 of the Dowry Prohibition implemented in its entirety in letter and spirit.

So all dear husbands, rain on the system with complaints that you came to know that you have taken dowry only via the FIR on you and file cases for giving dowry to you as per their own admission. The society shall get back from husbands what it has given them.

CRISP Press Conference: Child Custody & Grand Parents

Invitation for the Press conference:

To,

Respected Sir / Madam,

Children’s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP) would like to invite you to a press conference we are holding on 11th Dec 2008 at 12: 30 PM at the Press Club of Bangalore.

This press conference is about voicing the grievances of senior citizens as regards to their rights to spend time with their grandchildren. CRISP cordially invites you to the event and looks forward to your esteemed presence to grace the occasion.

With Best Wishes

Kumar Jahgirdar
President, Children’s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP)

Contact Details,

Kumar - 9845264488

CRISP Site

*********
Press Release to voice the concerns of senior citizens in a child custody matter
http://legalfighter.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/press-release-to-voice-the-concerns-of-senior-citizens-in-a-child-custody-matter/

Retrospective Clause in DV - Strategy

Well guys the retrospectiveness of DV has been a controversial topic of late. And the law being silent about it, the judiciary uses it to its own whims and fancies most of the times which are biased against men. Alleged acts of violence committed prior to 26th Oct 2006, the day the devilish DV law came in effect, are made part of petition and cases are getting registered.
But retrospectiveness in law is a serious issue and allowing retrospective matters in admittance of cases can have serious implications. As technological advances follows Murphy’s rule, newer dangers are also getting exposed and newer legal provisions can also come into effect. What was legal now can be illegal later, so do we book all those persons who committed a hitherto legal, but hence illegal action deemed as offense? Rationally and logically, No.
Coming back to DV, prior to it being enacted, calling names to wives was not an offense and some husband might have called his wife with some name, either out of love and affection or in a fit of anger, which even the wife must have done. But since DV outlines it as an offense only for the husband, allowing retrospective clause in DV law, all wives can book their husbands under DV and 100 % marriages will break. So retrospective clause is not healthy from a social and a futuristic standpoint of legal consideration.
Again arguing that DV does not attract penal consequences and the same arise only when protection order is violated and that offense will not be retrospective, then it must be remembered that in first place, case should not have registered, so no protection order should have been passed. So no possibility of commission of offense if retrospective clause is not defined for DV. But since the court has allowed it, it is also an equal party to the offense and should share the penalty!!! What an absurdity?
http://judis.nic.in/chennai/qrydisp.asp?tfnm=13665
Hence taking a cue from the above judgment and using the aforesaid logic, we can develop a strong petition to challenge retrospectiveness of DV and challenge any such summons under 397 CrPC and bring the case to a halt.

Also specifically,

DV Cannot be used retrospectively

1)SLP(C) No.25219 of 2004 delivered by the Honorble Supreme Court of India where in it was held Penal Statutes (Acts) which create
new offences are always Prospective

2)1993 Crl.J 2636 delivered by Honorble Allahabad High Court where in it was held the accused was acquitted for the offences
punishable u/s 304B as the dowry death took place prior to the commencement of the act 304B.

Domestic Violence Lanmark Judgements

1) Crl.P 3714 of 2007 delivered by the Hon´ble High Court of Andhra Pradesh where in it was held "It is a fundamental principle of law that any penal provision has no retrospective operation but only prospective. There is no allegation either in the report or in the statement or in the complaint on the 1st Respondent with regards to the acts of domestic violence that took place on or after 26-10-2006.Therefor e continuation of proceedings against the petitioners is nothing but abuse of process of court".

2) I (2008) DMC 1 delivered by the Hon´ble Madhya Pradesh High Court held that "" Complaint for this offence can only be filed against adult male person and further held in 3( C ) that as provided by sec 2(q)of the act, such application u/s 12 of the act can´t be filed against petitioner´s who are ladies ".

3) 2007(2) ALT (Crl.) 504(A.P) delivered by the Hon´ble High Court of Andhra Pradesh where in it was held "as there is no claim made against the other respondents, continuing process against them is a clear abuse of law".

4) I (2007) DMC 1 (SC) = 2007(3) ALT (Crl.) 1(SC) delivered by the Hon´ble Supreme Court of India where in it was held"claim for alternative accommodation can only be made against the husband but not to the In-laws".

Nagpur Dharna - Memorandum cum Press Release, Covering Letter & Appeal to Govt.

Nagpur Dharna - Memorandum, Appeal, Executive Summary

Dharna news reported on Tv, interspersed with Statistics, bitter realities, Opinions and some Music for inspiring the next revolution- Gender-Mafia.... Quit India!



Dharna Coverage: Speakers, Venue, Statistics of misuse of law.


Reports, etc. regarding the very Successful and inspiring Nagpur Dharna, at: http://at498a.blogspot.com/2008/07/nagpur-dharna-for-mens-welfare-ministry.html

Press Release:Mumbai Press Conference, 2nd April, 2008

Protect Indian Family Foundation
3, Tulsi Bhavan, S.N.Road, Mulund(W),Mumbai-400 080,
Tel: 022 25904171, 9224335577, 9869323538
Email: info@protectindianfamily.org Web: www.protectindianfamily.org

Press Release – Women against Misuse of Women-Protection Laws Mothers and Sisters Initiative (MASI) and All India Forgotten Women(AIFW) are organisations working towards the objectives of promoting family harmony and fighting legal terrorism (carried out through the misuse of women-protection laws). Protect Indian Family Foundation (PIF, a part of the umbrella group Save Indian Family Foundation-SIFF), is conducting this press conference in continuation of the National Events conducted by MASI and AIFW in last one month as mentioned below.

Women members of SIFF conducted a Dharna at Vidhan Shabha in Lucknow on 2nd March, 2008, conducted a Press Conference in Bangalore on 3rd March and a Press Conference and Seminar in Hyderabad on 5th March, and a Dharna in Delhi on 8th March, to highlight the consequences of women's empowerment gone awry. Through these events, we would like to bring to light the plight of the “forgotten women”, who have actually been dis-empowered and whose basic human rights are being violated by the police and judiciary in the name of women's rights, protection and empowerment. We seek to highlight the woes of thousands of mothers and sisters who have been ignored and written off by organizations claiming to work for women's welfare.

We stand for Protection of Women, but against misuse of Women protection laws.

Over the last 60 years many policies have been instituted in the country in the name of women's liberation and empowerment. Special laws have been passed specifically in the name of women's protection such as IPC Section 498A (law against marital cruelty and dowry harassment) and Domestic Violence Law. Unfortunately, there are no safeguards to prevent misuse of these protective provisions.

These “women-protection laws”, which are in essence wife-protection laws, assume that wives are always honest victims and would never jeopardize their own family life by making false claims of abuse. The draconian law, IPC Section 498A, in particular, allows the arrest of the husband and his male and female relatives, irrespective of their age, martial status or even health condition, solely on the basis of allegations of a wife, without any evidence or investigation.

Owing to this blind assumption and due to the absence of inherent checks and balances to prevent misuse of the laws, many innocent mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law and other female relatives of husbands are arrested and harassed through long-drawn legal proceedings that last several years.

Several authorities have noted that in close to 98% of cases filed under Section 498A, the accusations are false and that the complaints were only filed with ulterior motives.

Nevertheless, minor girls, pregnant women, married and unmarried sisters, ailing mothers and even aged grandmothers have been sent behind bars and prosecuted based on mere allegations. Young mothers are either torn away from their children or imprisoned along with them leaving indelible scars on the minds of the mothers and the children.

Many mothers and sisters are heart-broken to see their sons and brothers lose their youth, their health, their jobs, all their earnings, and sometimes even their lives, as they are mercilessly tortured by their estranged wives, aided by lawyers, police and the judiciary. Some women have ended their lives unable to bear the humiliation of being accused and arrested, and the trauma of making endless trips around the courts.

l Noted activist Madhu Kishwar acknowledged that IPC Section 498A is heavily misused, and that a significant proportion of individuals who approach “Manushi” these days are mothers-in-law and husbands who are falsely accused.

l Renowned IPS officer Kiran Bedi admitted that many poor and illiterate mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, who are falsely charged under IPC Section 498A are languishing in prison every year.

l The Supreme Court of India has labelled the misuse of IPC Section 498A as “legal terrorism”.

l The Delhi High Court recently stated that IPC Section 498A is the most abused provision.

l The World Health Organization, in its report on India clearly cited Section 498A as one of the major reasons for the “Increasing Abuse of the Elderly in India”.

l Recently, the National Human Rights Commission noted that the Tihar jail is overflowing with people falsely accused under dowry cases.

l A look at the crime records shows that every 20 minutes an innocent woman is arrested under IPC Section 498A.

In addition to penalizing innocent women, a large backlog of false cases in our highly corrupt and inefficient legal system prevents genuine victims of abuse from obtaining justice. Through IPC Section 498A the police and the legal fraternity are protecting those women who indulge in perjury, blackmail, extortion and harassment of their husbands and in-laws.

Despite having such compelling evidence that more harm than good is being done to women through IPC Section 498A, none of the leading women's organizations, law makers nor the Ministry for Women and Child Welfare have taken any measures to arrest misuse of this law.

All the warnings, requests, recommendations and demands from several quarters to amend IPC Section 498A have fallen on deaf ears. Even before fixing the flaws in IPC Section 498A the Domestic Violence Law was introduced in 2006 with similar loopholes and without public discussion. Misuse of the Domestic Violence law began very soon after its introduction, and under its provisions a number of elderly mothers-in-law have been thrown out of their own homes by their daughters-in-law.

It is customary for women's organizations to trivialize the extent of misuse of these laws by women and to exaggerate statistics of dowry harassment, dowry death and domestic abuse. It is also customary for women's rights activists to deny domestic abuse against our fathers, brothers and sons. However, recent data from the National Crime Bureau indicates that nearly twice as many married men, compared to married women, commit suicide every year, unable to withstand verbal, emotional, economic and physical abuse and legal harassment. While every death of a young married woman is converted into a case of dowry death leading to immediate arrest of the husband and in-laws, large-scale suicides of men do not cause any outrage in the society.

Is the pain of a mother who lost a son to domestic abuse or legal terrorism any less than that of a mother who lost a daughter? How many more mothers and sisters should lose their sons and brothers before measures are taken to alleviate their sufferings? .

It is often assumed that only men get victimized in false dowry cases. This is not true. The reality is that an innocent woman is arrested in every 20 minutes. The real victims of dowry harassment seldom go to
police and it's the innocents who get jailed. Every year 30,000 innocent women get jailed without evidence or investigation in dowry cases, ie. A woman every 20 minutes(Source NCRB).

Aren't mothers and sisters women? Don't they deserve a life of dignity and respect?

Does penalizing innocent mothers and sisters under false cases bring justice to genuinely abused women?

Does women's empowerment mean destroying family harmony and creating a fatherless society?

Is protection of women's rights synonymous with gross violation of basic human rights?

Is legal terrorism the solution to all women's problems?

These are the questions we ask the public, women's organizations, police, legal fraternity, bureaucrats and politicians in our Press Conference on the 2nd of April 2008.

Our specific demands to the government on this day are:

Police involvement in counselling should be banned.
Marriage is not a crime and marital disputes are not crimes either. Where there is no evidence of physical harm or threat to life or limb, the police should not be allowed to arrest anyone. The police should not be allowed to randomly summon a husband and his family members to the police station in the name of counseling or questioning in case of marital disputes.

Section 498A of IPC should be made bailable.
Section 498A, being non-bailable, allows punishing the accused by imprisonment even before guilt is established. This goes against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law. Abused women need protection, but placing unconditional faith in the statements of a woman and confining the accused husband and his family in police or judicial custody, until bail is granted by a court, is not the way to accord protection to women.

Section 498A of IPC should be made non-cognizable.
Innocent citizens are being arrested everyday based on mere complaints without requiring evidence or investigation. Even children and senior citizens are not being spared. IPC 498A, being a cognizable offence, violates a citizen’s right to due process.

IPC 498A and Domestic Violence Law should be made gender neutral.
Domestic abuse is not gender specific. The assumption that victims of physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse are always women is wrong. According the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “all are equal before the law, and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law”. Hence, our fathers, brothers, sons and husbands should also be accorded protection from physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse by women.

Persons who misuse IPC 498A and Domestic Violence Law should be penalized.
Misuse of the process of law not only costs the public exchequer dearly, but also destroys the personal lives of many innocent citizens. Misuse of law should be treated as a serious crime, and persons who use women-protection laws as weapons for settling personal scores in marital disputes should be severely punished.

Save Indian Family(SIF) is a strong team of dedicated families comprising of victims of "misuse of 498a", including NRIs, Senior citizens who campaign and create awareness about gross injustice and abuse that happen in Indian Legal system. Protect Indian Family is one of the NGO members in SIF, based in Mumbai. SIF has over 20 NGOs and 50,000 individuals as its members across the globe.24-hour

All India Helpline Number: +91-09243473794
Delhi: 9810611534,
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More helplines at: http://mynation.net/contact-us

Supported by :

www.saveindianfamily.org
www.mynation.net
www.savefamily.org
www.asha-kiran.org, www.sahanaindia.org, www.ghrs.in, www.498a.org, www.forgottenwomen.org

Thanks

Protect Indian Family (www.protectindianfamily.org)9869323538 (M.R.Gupta), 9821414336 (P.R.Gokul) , 9224335577(Vikram Ahuja)

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