498A: How to Harass Husbands in India. Part - 2

... Continued from previous post (498A: How to harass husbands in India - I)

Let’s get a sneak peek into what can be the possible motives of women using the 498A (other than true dowry cases):-

. Money – The wife can demand a huge amount of money from his husband, who has been jailed along with his parents, even for a short time, in case they have received an Anticipatory Bail

. Revenge – She can use it as a tool to take revenge if her husband etc did not fulfil her demands

. Guilt – She has done something wrong (for example, adultery), and wants to cover it up with a dowry harassment case

. She does not like you – She does not like her husband due to any reason, and wants to get out of the marriage

. Control over husband – She wants to control her husband in every possible way, and has not been able to do so. She may have wanted to stay alone with her husband, or, with her parents and her husband. Unable to do so, she files a 498A. It’s been observed that the woman’s mother plays a big role in such cases

. To marry her ex-boyfriend - She has not been able to forget her so-called “ex-boyfriend”, and now wants to marry him, with cash pocketed from the husband.

 

Photo Courtesy: Trey Morgan

Example Case 2: Entire family sent to jail in July 2003

As per “The Observer”, “The entire Sharma family is stuck inside New Delhi's Tihar Jail -- from the grandparents down to the youngest child, aged three. This is not due to some rampant criminal gene but because a daughter-in-law has filed charges against them alleging harassment to extract dowry payments.

Rupa Sharma (name changed) says their son's marriage to Tisha (name changed) went badly wrong.

"When divorce seemed on the cards, Tisha’s parents began claiming we were torturing Tisha and that we were trying to get a car and gold jewellery out of them. But they just wanted to take their anger out on us and the easiest way was to get us thrown into jail on cooked up dowry charges," she said.”

"Such women incriminate everyone, not just the husband but the husband's sister or brother and parents. 

In the Sharma's case, the three-year-old girl ended up in jail too because, with the entire family inside, there was no one to look after her at home," New Delhi HC judge Aradhana Ramachandran (name changed) said.

"It's taken decades for women to pluck up the courage to use these laws and now they want to dilute them. There may well be a few cases of abuse. But dowry-related violence is so horrific that these laws are life-savers for women and it would be disastrous to dilute them. 

We fought long and hard for these laws. We won’t give them up so easily," said Shiuli Karat (name changed), All India Democratic Women’s Federation (AIDWA) president.

In a recent article on a newspaper, it was found that more than 85% of the 498A cases filed against a husband were false. Now, the Indian law says that when your wife has filed a false 498A case against you, you are qualified to get a divorce. But then, you have to pay alimony as asked by your wife. So, ultimately, whether it’s a true 498A or a false one, the wife still succeeds in extorting a huge sum of money from the husband. In that case, does the husband not have the right to live a free life? Can he not be the sole person to enjoy his hard-earned money? 

Why does he have to pay money to someone who has harassed him and his family? Does the Indian law understand, the mental and social harassment undergone by the husband’s family from the day they are being imprisoned, till the day the final verdict is being heard? Does the Court compensate them for this harassment? The answer is a big NO. That is because, it is still believed in the Indian courtrooms that the wife has not done anything wrong in filing a 498A case. 

She can file it any time since the day of her marriage, till her death.

It has already been established that more than 90% of the Dowry cases filed in India are fake. But, in almost all the cases, the husbands are criminalized and arrested without even doing a proper investigation. Contrary to the laws laid by Indian Constitution, the husbands in such cases are held "Guilty until proven otherwise". Why are the women believed on so blindly?

Now, looking into this aspect of 498A, what is the logic behind being able to lodge a 498A against a husband whom, the wife has stayed apart from, for more than 70% of her married life? 

Take this scenario: The couple has been married for 11 months, and never even once has the woman allowed her husband to have any physical relationship with him. The wife has willingly walked out of her marital home after 3 months of marriage by physically beating up her mother-in-law with the help of her uncles, without the consent of and in the absence of the husband. 

Now, she files a case of 498A, and says that she had been subjected to mental and physical torture for dowry. 

And, even after the husband contests the divorce case, all his lawyers advise that he has to pay a huge alimony, even in the case of such voidable marriage.

So, as it stands today, if any woman is unemployed and wants quick and big money, and does not foresee a great future financially, gets married as per rituals only with extortion in her mind, and files a 498A.

Marriages were always regarded as a holy institution, as “marriages are made in heaven”. But if this trend goes on, provided the Indian Parliament does not change their women-centric laws, then, forget about heaven, marriages will genuinely cease to exist in the coming years. As I see today, marriage (as regulated by the feminists and such families) has now become more of an organised social crime, rather than the so-believed “holy institution”.

Sources: SIFF (Save Indian Family Foundation), 498a.org.in, punjabnewsline.com, ipc498a.wordpress.com, Taipei Times, The Indian Express