Check on dowry law misuse

The family members of a man facing charges of harassing his wife for dowry, may not be booked for harassment charges without an investigation if they do not live with him.

Updated on: Jul 29, 2008, 23:40:15 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The family members of a man facing charges of harassing his wife for dowry, may not be booked for harassment charges without an investigation if they do not live with him.

This is among the changes being considered by the Women and Child Development (WCD) ministry to check unnecessary harassment of the husband’s extended family.

Several organisations representing men have urged the WCD ministry to make changes in the Dowry Prohibition Act. The ministry is now revising the provisions to make them gender-neutral as well as in sync with live-in relations.

Under existing dowry laws, the police book all the persons named by the wife on dowry harassment charges. It is then left for the individual to prove himself or herself innocent in a court of law.

But, the government has found the clause is misused in many cases, resulting in members of the husband’s extended family being put behind bars as well. Delhi Police officials have also complained in this regard.

The basis for the proposed change is the question of how a person not living with the couple can indulge in dowry harassment. “Allegations against anyone who does not reside with the couple may have to be investigated by the police before they are booked,” a senior ministry official said.

The WCD ministry has called a meeting of lawyers, NGOs, police officials and experts to discuss women’s rights issues next week.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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