Credit:
Times of India : Page Number 17 : 6 March 2020

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The plea said the payment should not have been related to the date of the application but to the date of the order by the trial court. HC noted in its recent order the man has not challenged the quantum of maintenance assessed by the trial court.
“The object of grant of maintenance is to afford a subsistence allowance to the wife who is not able to maintain herself…the
award normally should be from the date of the application. For the court to award maintenance from the date of the order there
have to be compelling circumstances.
“Maintenance awarded to a wife is not a bounty. It is awarded to her so she can survive. The fact that time is spent between the
date of the application and a final adjudication and an award in favour of the wife, does not mean she had enough funds to
maintain herself,” Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva said.

Credit:
The Times of India : 21 May 2019 : Page 5

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Credit: 
The Times of India : July 29, 2018 Page – 3

The post Constant Harassment for Dowry appeared first on Anti Dowry.

They said that her husband and his family demanded dowry and forcefully took the woman’s salary every month. Police said that they are probing into these allegations.

Cops received a PCR call from one of the victim’s relatives, soon after which they reached the spot and rushed the woman to a private hospital, where she was declared brought dead.

Speaking to TOI, the deceased’s family said that the woman worked as a clerk at the railways department and had recently taken a transfer to Delhi as her husband worked in Gurgaon. “While she was in Patna, her husband asked her to move here so that they could live together and start a family,” said a relative.

“Her husband and his family kept forcing her for money and so she must have been compelled to take this step,” the relative added. The police have registered a case and are probing the matter.

Credit:
The Times of India :  Jun 7, 2018 : Page 8

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Credit:
Hindustan Times : 14 May 2018 : Page 7

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In the July 27 judgment, a bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and U U Lalit had cited data from the National Crime Records Bureau which indicated widespread misuse of Section 498A by women to get husbands and their relatives arrested and harassed for years. But on Friday, the SC decided that abuse of Section 498A should not amount to curtailing the ambit of the law.

The two-judge bench had ordered setting up of family welfare committees in every district which would examine the veracity of each complaint under Section 498A. It had said no arrest would be made till the committee gave a report endorsing prima facie authenticity of the complaint.

The earlier order had said there would be a designated police officer to probe Section 498A complaints and advised trial courts not to insist on personal appearance of all family members of the husband, especially those living elsewhere, and permit appearance through video conferencing.

In a case relating to protection of persons from arrest by police without warrant, as it happens in Section 498A complaints, the three-judge bench of Justices Misra, A M Khanwilkar and  D Y Chandrachud went far beyond the scope of the petition and said, “At this stage, we are obligated to say that we are not in agreement with the judgment in Rajesh Sharma vs UP case (pronounced on July 27). Abuse of Section 498A (by women) would not make this court curtail the ambit and scope of the section enacted to protect women from cruelty in matrimonial homes.”

The bench faulted the exercise undertaken by the two-judge bench in laying down elaborate guidelines as an exercise reserved solely for the legislature. The CJI-led bench said, “Prima facie, we feel the guidelines laid down may be falling in the legislative domain.”

It issued notice to the Centre and appointed senior advocate V Shekhar as amicus curiae while posting detailed deliberations for October 29.

The two-judge bench of Justices Goel and Lalit had extracted extensive data from NCRB to come to the conclusion that there was widespread misuse of the stringent anti-dowry provision under Section 498A of IPC. It extracted NCRB statistics for years 2005, 2012 and 2013. “According to Report of Crime in India, 2013, the NCRB pointed out that of 4,66,079 cases that were pending in the start of 2013, only 7,258 were convicted while 38,165 were acquitted and 8,218 were withdrawn. The conviction rate of cases registered under Section 498A IPC was also a staggering low at 15.6%,” it said.

Section 498A was inserted in the IPC in 1983 with the object of punishing cruelty at the hands of husband or his relatives against a wife, particularly when such cruelty had the potential to result in suicide or murder of a woman. Justices Goel and Lalit had also realised that laying down guidelines could be part of a legislative exercise, yet they went ahead with it saying the courts could not be silent when innocents were being harassed.

“We are conscious of the object for which the provision was brought into the statute. At the same time, violation of human rights of innocents cannot be brushed aside. Certain safeguards against uncalled for arrest or insensitive investigation have been addressed by this court,” they had said.

Credit:
The Times of India : October 14, 2017; Page 12.

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The top court overruled a lower court order that had stopped the deportation of the two accused from Maple Ridge near here.
In what became Canada’s most talked-about honour-killing case, Surjit Badesha and his sister Malkit Sidhu had hired contract killers to eliminate Malkit’s daughter Jassi (Jaswinder) Sidhu in June 2000, for marrying into a lower caste.
Canadian-born Jassi Sidhu, a Jat Sikh girl, had met Sukhwinder Singh (Mithu) in Jagraon during her visit to Punjab in 1996 and fallen in love.
The two secretly married in 1999 when she travelled to India.
Jassi was murdered near Mithu’s village in June 2000, when the couple was going on a scooter. They were waylaid by hired contract killers.
Punjab Police investigations confirmed it was an honour-killing plotted by Malkit Sidhu and Surjit Badesha sitting in Canada.
Based on evidence of 266 phone calls that Badesha had with the hired killers, India formally requested Canada in 2005, to extradite Badesha and Malkit Sidhu to face trial.
In May 2014, an extradition judge in the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver ordered that Jassi’s uncle and mother must be deported to India to face trial.
But the British Columbia’s Appeal Court overturned the deportation order against the mother and uncle of Jassi Sidhu on the grounds of India’s “appalling” record on treatment of prisoners.
Friday’s order by the country’s apex court cleared the decs for their deportation.
Vancouver journalist Fabian Dawson, who broke the story 17 years ago and later wrote a book titled “Justice for Jassi”, told IANS: “Today’s decision is significant because it ends the case in Canada.
“Now the Indian justice system comes into play… It is the start of another chapter in the quest for justice for Jassi,” Fabian added, “I fear for Mithu because there have been several attempts on his life because he is the principal witness in the case.”

Credit:
Hindustan Times: September 9, 2017

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The central ministries of women and child development, home affairs and law & justice are involved in heavy deliberations on how to effectively deal with complaints from a “large number” of women facing hurdles in receiving their maintenance despite the courts ruling in their favour.

Meetings have been held recently by the women and child development ministry with officials of the ministries of home affairs and law & justice, besides representatives from the Delhi-based National Law University and civil society groups working with women affected with domestic violence.

The proposed committee may be headed by a district judge with superintendent of police and representatives from civil society groups as its members. The proposal, if implemented, will bring huge relief to women, particularly from the lower income groups who continue to face hurdles in receiving maintenance awarded to them from courts and are unable to pursue legal battle for financial reasons.

This is also a step forward in strengthening the rights of women after the recent Supreme Court judgement annulling the practice of instant triple talaq. After the SC verdict, the government had clarified that henceforth any case of instant talaq reported by a victim will be treated as domestic violence. Maneka Gandhi, the minister for women and child development, has written a letter to law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad recently informing him that her ministry has been receiving complaints relating to maintenance and thus the setting up of the committee may be expedited as discussed at the inter-ministerial and stakeholders meetings.

“The objective is to monitor the timely disbursal of the maintenance awarded by the court. The committee will also supervise the speedy execution of warrants in case one is being issued by the court towards the grant of maintenance,” Gandhi said. A source said the law ministry is also contemplating writing to the Chief Justice of India to request him to issue an advisory to all the chief justices of the high courts to ensure that subordinate courts further simplify procedures and “ensure timely execution of proceedings with regard to the grant of maintenance to women”.

Credit:
The Times of India : September 9, 2017

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In her complaint under Section 498A to the police, a woman alleged that after her marriage, she stayed with her husband for 20 days, during which she was left completely alone and no one talked to her.

She alleged that her husband was “not even willing to talk freely to her despite her sincere efforts”. She accused the husband of evading her and refusing to consummate the marriage.
The SC had earlier ruled that refusal to cohabit could be a ground for seeking divorce. After the husband left for Australia where he worked, no one in his family talked to the woman, forcing her to leave the matrimonial house for her parent’s place.
She claimed that her parents had spent Rs 15 lakh on the marriage and Rs 20 lakh on goldornaments. The Cyberabad police filed a chargesheet and the case is pending before the metropolitan magistrate.
The high court at Hyderabad rejected a petition by the husband and his parents seeking quashing of the case. They appealed in the apex court. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Mohan M Shantanagoudar perused the wife’s complaint and said her story did not reveal any offence under Section 498A (cruelty at matrimonial home to drive the woman to commit suicide, cause injury to her or harassment for dowry) or Section 406 (breach of trust) of IPC as there was no demand for dowry. The bench quashed the case terming the complaint to be devoid of any charge under Section 498A or Section 406.
Times of India: Sep 8, 2017, 10:25 IST

ससुरालवालों का दुल्हन से बातचीत न करना क्रूरता नहीं : सुप्रीम कोर्ट

ससुरालवालों का दुल्हन से बात करना क्रूरता की श्रेणी में नहीं आता और इसके लिए क्रूरता से जुड़ी आईपीसी की धारा 498 ए के तहत किसी सजा का प्रावधान नहीं है। यानी अगर ससुराल में पति समेत ससुराल वाले दुल्हन से कई दिनों तक बात नहीं करते तो यह क्रूरता नहीं मानी जाएगी। ऐसा कहना है सुप्रीम कोर्ट का।

सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने यह फैसला धारा 498ए के तहत दायर किए गए ऐसे केस में दिया, जिसमें एक महिला ने अपने पति और ससुरालवालों पर क्रूरता का आरोप लगाया था। महिला का आरोप था कि शादी के बाद 20 दिनों तक वह अपने पति के साथ रही लेकिन इस दौरान न पति ने उससे बात की और न ससुरालवालों ने, उन्हें अलग-थलग रहना पड़ा।

महिला का आरोप है कि कई ईमानदार कोशिशें करने के बावजूद पति ने उनसे बेफिक्र होकर बात नहीं की। महिला ने पति पर उनसे दूर भागने और शारीरिक संबंध बनाने से इनकार करने का भी आरोप लगाया। एक अन्य केस में सुप्रीम कोर्ट पहले यह फैसला सुना चुका है कि पति का पत्नी के साथ रहने से इनकार तलाक का आधार बन सकता है।

महिला के मुताबिक, शादी के कुछ दिनों बाद पति ऑस्ट्रेलिया चला गया, जहां वह काम करता है। पति के जाने के बाद ससुराल में कोई उनसे बात नहीं करता था जिसकी वजह से उन्हें ससुराल छोड़ मायके में रहने के मजबूर होना पड़ा। महिला का दावा है कि शादी पर उनके घरवालों ने 15 लाख रुपये खर्च किए थे और 20 लाख रुपये के सोने के गहने दिए थे। साइबराबाद पुलिस ने इस मामले में महिला के पति और उसके ससुरालवालों पर केस दर्ज किया था।

Credit:
The Times of India: September 8, 2017

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Credit:
Hindustan Times Delhi: August 19, 2017 Page 3

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