Govt to give Dowry Act more teeth

The government may soon make amendments to the Dowry Prohibition Act to make it more effective. The changes will allow women to register gifts worth Rs 5,000 and more, that they receive at their wedding, with the dowry prohibition officer.

Updated on: Jan 13, 2010, 22:53:44 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government may soon make amendments to the Dowry Prohibition Act to make it more effective. The changes will allow women to register gifts worth Rs 5,000 and more, that they receive at their wedding, with the dowry prohibition officer.

This is one of several amendments in the Act proposed this week by an inter-ministerial group. The changes are aimed at providing more protection under the law to women against dowry menace and get adequate compensation, if a marriage breaks down.

The Cabinet is likely to consider the proposal in February. “We expect to introduce the amendment bill in the budget session of Parliament,” a senior women and child development ministry official said.

The group — with representation from ministries such as, WCD, law and home affairs — has decided that the Act should be amended to ensure that all gifts including stridhan or mahar or later during ceremonies such as child birth can be registered with the dowry prohibition officer.

The law provides for appointment of a senior government official as prohibition officers in each district of the country to register complaints under the Act and investigate them. Even 15 years after notification of the law, several states have failed to appoint protection officers in each district.

“There were not many complaints under the law as it was considered weak to act against dowry seekers,” said Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath. “With these changes the law would become more effective and provide women a platform to fight against dowry seekers.”

Registration of the gifts, the ministry officials said, will help women get the dowry back. “In most cases, a dispute emerges over the amount of dowry given. With the provision of registration of the gifts, the women will have a legal right to seek compensation for all the gifts given,” a senior ministry official said.

To prevent false claims over gifts, the group has decided that the protection officers will authenticate the list before registering it.

The government has decided that protection officers can also function as protection officers under Domestic Violence Protection Act, to improve efficiency of women specific laws.

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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