Poster. Image: National Commission of Women, India.
According to the popular discourse in India, laws which were introduced to protect women against violence have allowed women to file false and vexatious cases against their husbands and their in-laws. Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which came into being largely due to the failure of the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, criminalises the husband or his relatives who harass, injure the life, limb or health of a woman, or drive her to suicide for the failure to provide a dowry. This has been seen in conservative circles, as giving a carte blanche to women to bring false cases of harassment against their husbands, a perception that has been undeniably strengthened by a controversial Supreme Court judgment in the case of dowry related cruelty in Arnesh Kumar vs State Of Bihar in which the judge condemns the use of these progressive laws as ‘weapons rather than shields by disgruntled wives’.
Arnesh Kumar’s wife, Sweta Kiran, had initiated criminal proceedings for offences of cruelty under section 498A. It is an offence for which the police can arrest the accused without a warrant and carries a maximum sentence of three years. S Kiran complained that her father and mother-in-law demanded a Maruti car, television, air conditioner and a sum of Rs 800,000 (£8000 approximately). When the wife sought her husband’s support, his response was to echo his parents’ demands and to threaten to marry another woman if the dowry demand was not met. The issue before the Supreme Court was not to do with the truth or otherwise of the allegations levelled by the wife, because at that time the trial had not yet taken place. The sole issue to be decided was whether or not to grant bail to the husband and his relatives in anticipation of their impending arrest as the lower courts had rejected his application for bail.
