TNIE-C Survey: People blame lawyers

CHENNAI: Twice as many people blame the lawyers than the police for the violence at the Madras High Court last week. It is not surprising then that public opinion about lawyers is so low that half the people polled in a survey commissioned by The New Indian Express did not want their children to become lawyers, while only one-fifth did.

 

The violence erupted on February 19, when the police went to the High Court to investigate the egg pelting two days earlier of Subramanian Swamy. A clash between lawyers and police ensued, which carried on the next day, and which has forced the closure of courts since. 

The New Indian Express survey of 500 Chennaiites, carried out by research organisation C fore, makes it clear that the public sees the lawyers as the culprits of the current standoff between the executive and the judiciary. 

Respondents overwhelmingly disapproved of the egg pelting. Some lawyers have, post-clashes, asserted that the community also did not approve of the egg pelting, but this appears to have got drowned in the din. 

What has etched itself in the public mind, rather, has been the trade-union-manner in which the lawyers reacted when the police tried to take action in the egg-pelting incident. A third of those polled said the culprits should have been arrested immediately; and there were almost as many responses favouring the debarring of lawyers, as there were favouring a probe by the acting chief justice. 

The public antipathy towards the lawyers can be gauged by the fact that exactly twice as many respondents to The New Indian Express poll favoured police action at the courts, as those who approved of the police inaction during the caste-based rampage by law students in November. 

If anything, the public’s message to lawyers is clear: No one should presume to be above the law. 

Who is responsible for Thursday’s violence at the Madras High Court? 

The police 17 

Both are equally guilty 49 

The lawyers 34 

Twice as many people blame the lawyers as those who blame police. 

What should have been the proper course of action after the egg-pelting? 

The lawyers responsible be stripped of their licence to practice law 21 

The acting Chief Justice of the High Court investigate the matter 25 

Police arrest the culprits immediately 32 

The lawyers association investigate the matter 10 

The matter should have been forgotten 12 

Why are the lawyers resorting to strike? 

To bring attention to the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils 19 

To protest high-handed police action 69 

To protest inadequate facilities in the High Court 3 

None of the above 9 

How do you feel about some lawyers pelting Subramaniam Swamy with eggs inside a courtroom? 

Approve 13 

Disapprove 68 

Have no view 19 

You support 

Police action to quell the lawyers unrest at high court 38 

Police inaction when law college students went on the rampage 19 

Did not support either of the options 43 

Do you want your son/daughter to be a lawyer? 

Yes 20 

Don’t know/Can’t say 31 

No 49 

Methodology: C fore conducted the survey in Chennai on 23 and 24 February, 2009. A questionnaire was sent to 500 people of different socio-economic categories.  Forty-one per cent were women. All figures are in percentages. 

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SIFF Bangalore thanks Chief Justice of Karnataka

To,
Shri. P.D. Dinakaran
Honorable Chief Justice of Karnataka
High Court of Karnataka
Bangalore

Sub: A note of thanks for listening to our voices

Respected Sir,

            We feel proud to introduce ourselves as Save Indian Family Foundation, an NGO dedicated to promote the cause of Gender Equality and Family harmony. We wish to extend our sincere feelings of gratitude for the appointment of two additional judges for family courts at Bangalore, Nyaya Degula and thus giving the litigants a breather who were in great trouble due to long pending of cases.

However, as the number of pending cases is close to 13,000 as per various media reports and more and more number of cases are filed owing to crumbling family structure, we feel the current number of judges might not also be adequate and we might need more number of judges with additional courts to address the monstrous figure of pending cases at the Family Courts, Bangalore.

On an ending note, we sincerely thank you for taking note of our protests outside family courts and responding to them positively and look forward to continued support from your good office in resolving issues related to family problems.

 

Invitation to Dharna Against Legal Terrorism

Is the pain of a mother lesser when her son dies relative to when her daughter dies?

Is the pain of a sister lesser when her brother dies relative to when her sister dies?

Save Indian Family Foundation invites you to a peaceful gathering to protest against the rampant and blatant misuse of pro-women marital laws against men which are resulting in large scale suicides amongst married men.

Our Immediate Demands are:-

1.   Clear the Pendency of cases in Family Courts.

2.   Give more judges and more Family Courts.

3.   Make all gender biased marital laws Gender Neutral.

4.   Check misuse of these laws.

5.   Stop Treating Men as FREE ATM MACHINES

6.   Check High Rate of suicides of married men.

7.   Establish National Commission for Men, and

8.   Men’s Welfare Ministry,

To address the above problems as well as scores of others.

Date: 14 February 2009

Time: 9: 30 AM to 2: 00 PM

Venue: In front of Gandhi Statue on M.G. Road, Bangalore

Invitees: All citizens of India.

Supported by:-

1.    Save Family Foundation, Delhi

2.    MyNation Foundation, Delhi

3.    Gender Human Rights Society, Delhi

4.    Rakshak Foundation, Delhi

5.    Mother’s and Sister’s Initiative, Delhi

6.    Protect Indian Family Foundation, Mumbai

7.    Indiya Kudumba Pathukappu Iyakkam Chennai

8.    All India Forgotten Women, Hyderabad

9.    Rishtey, Hyderabad

10.  Save Indian Family Foundation, Nagpur

11.  Bharat Bachao Sangathan, Kolkata.

Contact:

Virag – 9986378801 (English)

Panduranga Katti – 9432853272 (English)

Shiva Shankara – 9743183369 (Kannada)

Prakash – 9880436929 (Kannada)

9342853272 www.saveindianfamily.org 9845143274

Press Release welcoming the CrPC Amendment Bill 2008

PRESS RELEASE

Sub: Presenting our views welcoming the CrPC Amendment Bill 2008 as passed.

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), a NGO dedicated to Gender Equality and human rights is voicing support of the recent amendments to Code of Criminal Procedures (CrPC), which will put an end to arbitrary arrests and detention by police. President Pratibha Patil signed this CrPC amendment bill. This amendment is expected to improve the human rights record of India and greatly reduce the corruption and extortion in police stations. This will also reduce false complaints and will stop people using police for settling personal and political scores and vendettas. A whopping 40 lac people get arrested in India every year, without justifiable reasons.

• Please note, this amendment does not take away the “power to arrest” by police.
• Police can arrest the accused provided police has the warrant.
• Police can also detain the accused, question and investigate.

The Supreme Court of India has voiced in its various landmark judgments that, “Arrest of a person is a very serious matter and a wrongful arrest causes grave ignominy to the person.”

The third report of the National Police Commission, referring to the quality of arrest by the police in India had mentioned that “power of arrest was one of the chief sources of corruption in the police. The report suggested that by and large nearly 60% of the arrests were either unnecessary or unjustified and that such unjustified police action accounted for 43.2% of the expenditure of the prison department.”

As this law gets implemented,

1. From now on, police cannot arrest a person easily, if they do not have arrest warrant.
2. Police can arrest an accused person in a crime having sentence of less than 7 years, only if the accused does not cooperate with police. The police have to give the reasons for arrest in writing.
3. This amendment does not take away the “power to arrest” of police. It only puts checks and balances to police’s powers, which will go a long way in stopping abuse, torture, corruption and extortion in police stations. With this accountability structure in place, now police will be held accountable, if they do any arbitrary arrests without evidence or investigation.
4. As police will be free from involvement in personal and political vendettas, the false criminal cases will reduce in the country. It is police and lawyers, who used to gain maximum by encouraging people to file false criminal complaints against each other. This is certain to stop.
5. With this amendment, even politicians cannot use police against each other for political vendetta.

This landmark reform regarding the way police conducts itself will bridge the huge gap between police and the citizens. Till now, Indian police inherited unconditional power of arrest from police in British Raj, whose goal was to enforce fear in the minds of people of India. Indian police enjoyed the maximum powers to arrest people arbitrarily compared to many evolved democracies in the world.

It is to be noted that more than 1,23,000 women were arrested and most of them jailed in last 4 years under section 498a of IPC without investigation or evidence. This itself shows the enormous powers that police used to enjoy.

Please refer to statistics from National Crime Records Bureau:
http://ncrb.nic.in/cii2007/cii-2007/Snapshots.pdf

27,80,559 persons were arrested under IPC crimes and 40,87,246 persons were arrested under SLL crimes in year 2007. Overall 68,67,805 persons were arrested both under IPC and SLL crimes in 2007.

Of which 60% being unnecessary, 40 lacs unnecessary arrests took place in 2007. If police is busy making these 40 lacs (4 million) unnecessary arrests and extorting money, then how can it prevent criminals and terrorists? Where will police get the focus to fight crime?
There are also agencies, who are trying to mislead people by propagating false information about the amendment to CrPC.

Some of the salient features of amendments to Section 41 of the CrPC, pertaining to power of arrests with police are,

   1. The amendment proposes that the police officer may, instead of arresting the person concerned, issue a notice of appearance, asking him to cooperate with the police officer in the probe.
   2. Where such a notice is issued to any person, it shall be the duty of that person to comply with the terms of the notice and arrest can be made only if the person fails to comply with the notice.

   3. Every police officer while making an arrest shall “bear an accurate visible and clear identification of his name.” At the time of arrest, the memorandum shall be attested by at least one witness, who is a member of the family of the person arrested or a respectable member of the locality where the arrest is made.

Often it is found that due to lack of checks on the police’s power to arrest, this power is misused especially in offenses under Section 498A, where it is possible for a married woman to implicate the entire family in a false dowry harassment case. The family is shown the fear of jailing and often either hefty bribes (or extortion amount) to the tune of lacs even are taken from the husband and his family to spare them the ignominy of arrest. 

SIFF extends full support to the Government in making these amendments a part of the official gazette. Some of the benefits of making these amendments are:-

1.    This amendment will reduce corruption, abuse and extortion in police stations.

2.    Often the enormous “power to arrest” given to police used to result in personal and political vendettas. People used to influence police to settle personal and political scores. The amendment will put an end to all these dangerous activities.

3.    This is the next revolutionary incident after passing of RTI act so far as anti-corruption drive is concerned.

4.    This will bring focus to the activities of police towards creating a crime free and terror free society. At present, police worry more about the extortion money every month than terrorism or crime in the city.

5.    Even politicians can not influence the police now to get their opponents arrested arbitrarily.

6.    It is to be noted that people are sent to jail (or judicial custody) by a magistrate and not by police. So, people who are accused of crime will as usual be sent to jail after police completes investigation.

7.    As per the third report of National Police Commission, since 60% of the arrests are unnecessary and unjustified, it means that in the jails, 60% innocent people have mixed with 40% criminals. This amendment will put an end to this dangerous trend.

8.    SIFF is in touch with some reputed senior lawyers in Bangalore and they have opinioned that these amendments are a positive step towards a better civil society.

A gory picture of the misuse of the power to arrest is evident from the fact that, 1,23,000 women have been arrested in the last four years (2004-2007), as per National Crime Records Bureau, on a mere complaint, without trial or investigation, in offenses under Section 498A. These women are the mothers, sisters, and sister-in-laws and female children in the family of men who are mostly falsely implicated in such cases as section 498A of the IPC has come under serious scanner of being heavily misused. With this amendment in place, such gruesome mishaps on women can be averted.

It is a misrepresentation of the good intentions of the Government of India that the current proposed amendment will work to help criminals. The current proposed amendment nowhere does curtail the powers of the police to arrest criminals. It merely streamlines and regulates the process to put checks on misuse of the power and tends to introduce a sense of accountability and opposing such a regularization of process only points to the existing anarchy in the system which needs a serious check

It is left to the choice of the Government of India whether it wants to support anarchy or regularization. India is a democracy which requires high concern of the life and liberty of its citizens. Regularization of process and introduction of accountability is a necessary ingredient of the requirement. Passing this CrPC Amendment, the Government of India will be implementing the above requirement in practicality.

Our Demands

• Immediately implement the CRPC Amendment which aims at stopping arbitrary arrests .
• Immediately Form a 3 member compliance committee consisting of people who have proven themselves innocent with powers to summon and punish the errant officers who may misuse and side steps the intentions of provisions by giving frivolous reasons of arrest.
• Ensure that police provides the compliance order of section 41 on demand to any citizen who requests so that frivolous reasons are not used to justify arrests 

Girl Child – The Usable Commodity

All the characters in the article are imaginary and have no resemblance to any person living or dead. Any co–incidence is purely co–incidental.

Priyanka is a confused girl. They want her to get married to a rich guy as Priyanka is their only daughter and they expect their potential son-in-law to take care of them as well. Priyanka, however, is unaware of this desire of theirs. She thinks her parents think, she can only be happy with wealth and thus want a rich son-in-law. And she has been brought up since childhood with an impression that all her wishes are going to be fulfilled by her ‘Prince Charming’ who will come for Priyanka, the Princess, riding on a Black Stallion and take her along. Hence she has high expectations from her future husband.
She gets married to Sanjit. Going by her expectations, she starts throwing tantrums on him to relish all her hidden and suppressed desires of a lavish and luxurious life. Also she has been well-tutored by her mother to control Sanjit right from the beginning. Sanjit is a very family oriented person who tries to be very co-operative to Priyanka and tries his level best to keep her happy as per ‘her’ terms. But no sooner Priyanka gets into the mode of abusing him to get all she wants and becomes totally indifferent to him to the point that he can no longer take the abuse, ingratitude, and constantly changing and increasing expectations and gives up. Feeling ‘harassed and dejected’, Priyanka files a false dowry case on Sanjit and his parents as this is the only way she can get the sadistic pleasure of getting him arrested so that he may ‘understand’ her and give in to her ‘demands’. But Sanjit does not budge and pledges to fight the case howsoever difficult it may be.
Priyanka comes back to her parents and slowly the case becomes too complex for her to handle as she is neither able to prove her lies nor defend them. Slowly she realizes, her parents also do not love her, they just wanted to ‘use’ her to get to the riches of someone rich like Sanjit. And also realizes that now they cannot get it, view her as a burden.
The story of Sanjit and Priyanka is not a one-off exception. It has become the norm of the days in almost every fourth marriage. Every year the number of false dowry cases is increasing. Save Indian Family Foundation gets almost 250 – 300 such cases every week as it is approached by men and their families who are falsely implicated in it. A study of the background of these cases points to a very grim fact, that girls have indeed become a burden these days for parents and they only want to use their girls to secure their old age by marrying her off to a rich guy and enjoying his riches either by being successful in separating him from his immediate family or extorting him through false cases. All are not brave and daring like Sanjit to give a tough fight and many give in to the extortion.
Such parents bring up their daughters without any training. The daughter grows up with a feeling that it is OK for her to abuse her husband and her parents are always there to support her. She has no regards either for a family or the marriage and views it as her license to the world of dreams. She has a constant pressure to control her husband and when she cannot, she feels frustrated and holds her husband responsible for not giving in to her demands.
They not only ruin the life of their daughter but also contribute to the spreading legal terrorism and male-hatred. They are like a poison to the society and deserve social ostracization. But this is the just the tip of the iceberg. The unprofessional pamperment lent by the system, the Government to Women puts a false confidence in these parents that if they fail to get what they want through social means, they can always get it through laws. Feminists have, anyways, created enough euphoria for the word ‘Dowry’, that the mere mention of the word sparks sympathy for the ‘wife’ and hatred for the ‘husband’. And since Governments Love Feminism, these feminists also get patronage from the Government.
The word, ‘Dowry’ as obnoxious it sounds, is also used obnoxiously to hide a ‘wife’s’ follies, and create undue pressure on the husband to waste his resources in saving his skin from an unwarranted case rather than expose his wife to the society. Again adverse media trial also works against the husband and creates a false impression of the victimhood of the ‘wife’ in the society. It also creates an impression that ‘husbands’ are bad and it is OK to abuse a husband and presents the male as the Disposable Gender.
Since such practices over the years have developed a victimized image of women, issues like female feticide and female infanticide have gained ground and again subdued male feticide and male infanticide whereas the biological truth is that a male has three times more probability to die while birth than a female. And this false fear imbibes a sense of burden in the parents of the like of Priyanka’s who view the Girl Child as a “Usable Commodity” and in turn convert the male into a “Disposable Entity”.
In a nutshell, these parents are largely responsible for the skewed state of the society. However the Government and the lawmakers, where they have made all sorts of laws to put curb and checks on men, especially husbands and their families, there is not a single law which prevents the women, especially the wives and their families, from committing a marital crime or misusing the laws made for them. As a result the abettors of the suicides of 57,000 married men and 9000 unmarried girls are moving freely in the society.

Memorandum to the President of India

To
Her Excellency President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil,

Sub: Extending favor and support to the CrPC Amendment Bill 2008

Her Excellency,
We feel privileged to introduce ourselves as Save Indian Family Foundation, an NGO dedicated to the cause of promoting Family Harmony and Gender Equality. Save Indian Family Foundation and its allied partner NGOs have taken up cudgels against the rampant Legal Terrorism going on in the country in the last few years by way of misuse of various marital laws, drawn in favor of women which has led to phenomenal increase in the suicides of married men, senior citizens being thrown out of their houses and the foundations of a fatherless society being laid down. In a nutshell the erosion of values has set itself in the precincts of one of the most treasured social institutions i.e. the Indian Family.
Even the Honorable Supreme Court in its various judgments has sounded alarm bells to take serious note of the situation. We feel constrained to draw your attention to a remark made by the Honorable Supreme Court in its landmark judgment Joginder Kumar vs. State of UP 1994, AIR 1349 1994 SCC (4) 260 JT 1994 (3) 423 1994 SCALE (2)662, attached as Annexure A, about arrests as,
“No arrest can be made because it is lawful for the police officer to do so. The existence of the power to arrest is one thing. The justification for the exercise of it is quite another. The police officer must be able to justify the arrest apart from his power to do so. Arrest and detention in police lock-up of a person can cause incalculable harm to the reputation and self-esteem of a person. No arrest can be made in a routine manner on a mere allegation of commission of an offence made against a person. It would be prudent for a police officer in the interest of protection of the constitutional rights of a citizen and perhaps in his own interest that no arrest should be made without a reasonable satisfaction reached after some investigation as to the genuineness and bona fides of a complaint and a reasonable belief both as to the person’s complicity and even so as to the need to effect arrest. Denying a person of his liberty is a serious matter. The recommendations of the Police Commission merely reflect the constitutional concomitants of the fundamental right to personal liberty and freedom. A person is not liable to arrest merely on the suspicion of complicity in an offence. There must be some reasonable justification in the opinion of the officer affecting the arrest that such arrest is necessary and justified. Except in heinous offences, an arrest must be avoided if a police officer issues notice to person to attend the Station House and not to leave the Station without permission would do.”
Above statements seriously reflect the ignominy brought upon an innocent citizen of India, by a wrongful arrest. As per the third report of National Police Commission referred in Writ Petition No. 4861/2000 in the High Court of Allahabad attached as Annexure B, 60% of the arrests are either unnecessary or such unjustified which accounts for 43.2% of the expenditure of the jails which is a great burden on the exchequer.
All these facts point to a saddening fact that the power to arrest is seriously misused by the police especially in non-bailable and cognizable offenses like IPC 498A wherein 1,23,000 women have been arrested in the last four years (2004-2007) on a mere complaint, without trial or investigation. These women are the mothers, sisters, and sister-in-laws and female children in the family of men who are mostly falsely implicated in such cases as section 498A of the IPC has come under serious scanner of being heavily misused.
In wake of all the above factual averments, the current proposed CrPC Amendment Bill, 2008, having amendment pertaining to Section 41(1)-a of the Criminal Procedure of Code, 2008 wherein the police can issue, “Notice of Appearance” before actually arresting the person for crimes having punishment up to seven years. If the person does not co-operate in investigations then only the police officer can arrest with proper justification. This is a very positive step taken by the Government of India to curb the misuse of arrest power by police and Save Indian Family Foundation and its allied partner NGOs extend their full support to the amendment.
Some noteworthy points in this connection:-
1. Save Indian Family Foundation believes as per attached media report, Annexure C, that there is a section of lawyers who are intending to strike against the proposed amendment which is a very serious concern. It is only a very small section of lawyers who are running their bread and butter on arrests of people and bail proceedings and the extortion involved therein who are protesting the amendment.
2. It is a very underestimated nexus of corruption between the police and this section of lawyers wherein frivolous cases under these sections are made up and then extortions are made in the name of ‘settlement and compromise’ under the hanging sword of ‘potential judicial custody’. It is a very heinous process thriving on the fracas of the carcass of the family values and needs serious condemnation and discouragement.
3. Further, it will be imperative to mention here that lawyers are ‘Custodians of the Constitution’ and not ‘Creators of the Constitution’. Save Indian Family Foundation is concerned that giving in to the protests of these lawyers will prevent the Government from taking a much needed positive step to salvage the damaged image and eroded trust of the ‘Stupid Common Man’ on the system especially the Police and the Judiciary.
4. It can as well seriously affect the lawyers’ business because people will either refrain from going to such lawyers or will change their services immediately as such lawyers are not believed to be acting in the general interest of people, rather they want their business running at the expense of the society.
5. As presented by them that the current proposed amendment will work to help criminals is again a misrepresentation of the good intentions of the Government of India. The current proposed amendment nowhere does curtail the powers of the police to arrest criminals. It merely streamlines and regulates the process to put checks on misuse of the power and tends to introduce a sense of accountability. Opposing such a regularization of process only points to the existing anarchy in the system which needs a serious check.
It is left to the choice of the Government of India whether it wants to support anarchy or regularization. India is a democracy which needs to have high concern of the life and liberty of its citizens. Regularization of process and introduction of accountability is a necessary ingredient of the requirement. Passing this CrPC Amendment, the Government of India will be implementing the above requirement in practicality.
Save Indian Family Foundation does believe and hope the Government of India will take the above concerns, factual averments and considerations seriously and expects full co-operation from the Government to kill functional anarchy in the system.
Enclosures,
1) Annexure A : Judgment copy of Joginder Kumar vs. State of UP 1994, AIR 1349 1994 SCC (4) 260 JT 1994 (3) 423 1994 SCALE (2)662
2) Annexure B : Copy of Writ Petition no. WP 4861/2000 HC Allahabad Ajit Singh alias Muraha vs. State of UP containing reference to the third report of National Police Commission.
3) Annexure C : Media report, reporting the proposed strike by lawyers.

The alliance of power and responsibility

None ever imagined that Uncle Ben’s statement, “With power comes great responsibility”, in the movie, “Spiderman” on power and responsibility will be epitomizing the current democratic situation of India. The statement made by Uncle Ben was true to the core. With power definitely comes great responsibility and when the balance of the union is disturbed chaos ensues. Democracy, as it gets epitomized by the famous words, “Of the People, By the People, For the People”, is in deep shackles and under scathing criticism in India currently.
Analysis of the situation points out to a very interesting linkage between Democracy, Autocracy and the marital relationship between Power and Responsibility. We will get to the actual analysis later. A quick look of the current situation of India paints a very grim picture.
1. Every quarter on an average two terrorist attacks are happening all over the country leading to severe and unwarranted loss of innocent lives.
2.  Political leaders are openly caught in horse – trading for serious issues like the 123 agreement for nuclear deal.
3. Upcoming political aspirants hijack linguistic issues and create a mess out of it resulting in loss of innocent lives in the political cross – fire.
4. For the sake of vote bank and the in the name of Women Empowerment men are being discriminated against leading to the unleashing of Legal Terrorism onslaught on them which leads to abysmally high suicide rates amongst married men especially.
5.  Women pamperment goes on to appease the affluent women lobbies who misrepresent the situation to the governing agencies and staunchly anti – male draconian laws are passed to extort money from men and treat them as free ATM machines to the extent that all over India abroad, affected and aggrieved citizens have formed support groups under the aegis of the Save Indian Family movement, to create awareness about the ongoing injustice and to help the families of falsely implicated men.
6.  A fatherless society is in the making in the increasing age of divorces with children trapped in divorcing marriages being routinely deprived of their right to meet their fathers and paternal grandparents and vice versa due to which juvenile crime is on the rise.
And many more things are taking turn, as this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Ironical as it may sound, but countries having autocratic governments are doing better than democratic country like India. Though one may go by the argument that in an autocratic government, the people do not have any say in the government, whereas in a democracy the people have a right to choose their own leader and have a say.
But there comes the glitch. Autocracy reflects a conjugal union of power and responsibility as whosoever comes to power has the responsibility to maintain it and justify it. This sense of responsibility not only induces an inherent sense of accountability but also guarantees good governance as is evidence from the GDP index of countries.
Whereas in a democracy as it is the people who choose their representatives through general elections, there is an automatic divorce of Power and Responsibility leading to utter chaos and non – governance as depicted in the current grim picture of India. Since the representatives are given power by the citizenry of the country, they shelve off the responsibility and become non – accountable loose cannons and power centers sans responsibility who work not for the country and the citizenry but for themselves and as per their own whims and fancies.
Whereas the citizenry who takes the responsibility to enthrone the power mongers loses its power once given and becomes an emotional fool with responsibility sans power who takes the blame of responsibility for every fallacy and being powerless has limited powers other than crying foul. And this is the norm of the day as various support groups have come up to fight the deficiencies in the system be it the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, or the Save Indian Family Foundation or Save Family Foundation or the Protect Indian Family.
It’s in fact a matter of great shame for the stakeholders of democracy, that various groups as mentioned above are coming up to beat the shackles created by its stakeholders and participants. Only time will tell the future of the divorce between power and responsibility. It’s high time some inherent sense of accountability is introduced into the system for larger interest of public.

If taking Dowry is a crime, so is giving, says court

If taking dowry is a crime, so is giving, says court

Vineeta Pandey

Friday, December 05, 2008  03:31 IST

Noida magistrate orders action against bride’s family for giving dowry and misusing Act to settle personal scores

NEW DELHI: A Noida court has ordered police to book a woman and her parents for giving dowry. The chief judicial magistrate (CJM) of Noida ordered the police to register an FIR against Noida-based call centre employee Natasha Juyal and her parents under section 3 of the Dowry Prohibition Act (DPA) for giving dowry. The CJM also ordered action against police officers who refused to register Natasha’s husband Namit Juyal’s complaint.  

Giving or taking dowry is a criminal offence under Section 3 of the DPA with imprisonment. This is a rare case where the section was evoked against a woman and her family.

Namit’s lawyer Pradeep Nawani argued that Natasha had not only accepted to giving dowry, but also submitted a list of stridhan that was not as per the DPA. Even her claim of huge wedding expense did not match her father’s financial capacity.

According to Nawani, Natasha filed a complaint of dowry harassment in Noida’s sector-20 police station last year, saying Namit was given Rs10 lakh as dowry in 2005.

The Noida police arrested Namit and packed him off to Dasna jail in UP. After getting bail, Namit sought information under RTI from the Noida police, seeking to know on what basis he was arrested.

He was horrified to hear that he was arrested on the basis of his wife’s mere written complaint and verbal statement with no records to back her allegations. He then asked police to register a complaint against his wife and family for giving dowry.

On refusal by the police, he approached court to get a complaint registered against his wife and her parents. He also sought contempt of court action against the police for failing to comply with a supreme court order, stipulating that refusing to register police complaint by a husband in a dowry case is tantamount to the contempt of court. 

Vizag Seminar Press Coverage

 

 

 

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 26^th 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.