MISUSE OF GENDER LAWS IN INDIA
In India, several laws have been framed in a way that protects women. Historically and otherwise, women have been found to be at the receiving end of abuse. Hence, a need was felt by our Lawmakers to include, besides other provisions, some gender-specific provisions which would shield women. With the passage of time, several modifications have been brought into effect in these laws. Every modification has further strengthened them, making those willing to file it even stronger. Although the intent behind this was indisputably good, the strengthening of gender-oriented laws has not served the purpose for which they were created in the first place.
In India, allegations of mistreatment are enough to get one arrested if the complainant is a woman and the alleged perpetrator happens to be a man. Structural and coherent use of gender-oriented laws was what was required in our society. However, the misuse of these laws is rampant. Sexism is a global phenomenon, and India isn’t untouched by the same. But, to assume that only women are victims of sexism is hypocritical. Men can be victims of sexism, too, through the misuse of laws against them.
Since time immemorial, the world has been witnessing a series of crimes that can be referred to as being ‘gender-oriented. Since those at the receiving end of these crimes often happened to have been females, it led to a general belief in the society that crimes and offences occur majorly against women and are driven by a societal urge to suppress and alienate them. While this isn’t entirely wrong because statistics favour the prevalence of such happenings, this particular fact can’t be taken as gospel truth to negate and neuter crimes that happen against other genders. Law plays a significant role in deciding how things unfold. It was essential to make laws that protect women. Of late, there have been several cases of misuse of these laws because of a variety of reasons.
There are specific provisions in the law of the land which ensure the protection of women and their rights. These include, but are not limited to, crimes like Sexual Harassment, Dowry and Indecent Representation to benefits such as Maternity Benefits and Equal Remuneration and Acts such as the very famous National Commission for Women Act. These Acts and Laws were enacted by the Parliament of India because a need was felt to work for, besides providing encouragement, improving the condition of women in our society. While these acts have definitely played a significant role in improving the status of women in our society, they have also provided some of them to misuse these for their own benefits!
Whereas misuse of laws is, unfortunately, a common practice in our country, this project will only restrict itself to the misuse of gender laws in India, especially so by women. This is one of those areas which has just started to gain momentum among the masses, but the legal and societal recognition of which has not received enough attention.
MISUSE OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT RELATED LAWS
Undoubtedly, because of a number of reasons, the issue of sexual harassment has seen an upward trend and spread like wildfire. These reasons include lack of awareness, lack of sex education, lack of education, etc. Deterrence of the wrongdoers by framing them under the law of the land is the only lawful way of punishing the culprits and preventing further cases. The laws against sexual harassment are stringent in India for doing the needful. However, these stringent laws aren’t free of loopholes, either. The exploitation of these loopholes is as important an issue as the crime itself. While there are enough provisions for a female victim to report the issues related to sexual harassment, the law does not really have enough provisions to verify the claims made by her against the harasser, who happens to be male.
Consequently, our laws are based on the belief that any woman who directly or indirectly complains of sexual assault must be speaking the truth. Hence, the male member is held guilty in our society even before some concrete evidence is brought to prove his guilt. The male member, more or less, gets reproached by the entire society surrounding him.
On 27th October 2020, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) recommended not disclosing or hiding the identity of the person accused of rape or sexual assault until proven guilty. This was one of the suggestions of a study conducted jointly by the NHRC and Centre for Women’s Development Studies, titled “Interrogating violence against women from the other side: An exploratory study into the world of perpetrators”.
It is said in this document that the revelation of names can have serious ramifications when the accused is later found to be innocent. This study included in its purview experts from various fields including, but not limited to, law, media, police, child and gender rights and psychiatry.
The majority of the perpetrators claimed that they had had a consensual romantic involvement with the females, whose families, upon discovering the same, got them booked under sexual assault. A study by The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) surveyed 43 juvenile boys housed at Sewa Kutir in Delhi who had been framed under sexual assault charges. About 40% of them denied the charges by saying that they had made consensual relations, but either the girl turned bitter after it or the family of the girl disapproved of their involvement.
The study also took into account the versions of 20 adult accused men at the Tihar Jail. “A majority of the interviewees in Tihar Jail denied the charges. Most of them blamed the criminal justice system, which was, in their view, tilted towards the victim. Others claimed that the charges were levied against them due to reasons such as family rivalry or alcoholism. Some others denied the charges claiming they were co-accused in a gang-rape, in which they played little to no part,” is what the survey added.
While it is true that the versions of these people are not completely reliable, too, but the benefit of the doubt needs to be given to them. Our judicial system ought to be based on the principle that even if 99 criminals are freed of the charges imposed on them, a single innocent should not be punished. However, there is a lot of difference between ‘what ought to be’ in society and what really is happening. In India, we are seeing an increasing trend of false cases being filed, which pertain to sexual harassment and rapes. The trend is, these days is being recognised by the Courts, too.
On 16th March 2020, a woman from Palghar district of Maharashtra had registered an FIR against a man for allegedly ‘drugging and raping’ her. However, she later filed a petition in the Bombay High Court, saying that she did not wish the case to be pursued. Pressure from her family’s side to go against the man legally is what she had cited as the reason for getting the FIR quashed. In her statement made later on, she claimed to have been in a relationship with the man but concocted the false story of being ‘raped’ upon her family’s discovery of the same.
Public prosecutor Aruna Kamat Pai opposed this petition in the honourable High Court, arguing that the case was under investigation and that the Police would file a charge sheet soon. She demanded a heavy fine be imposed on the woman in case of the Court ruling in favour of having the FIR quashed.
On 26th August 2020, a Division Bench constituting of Justice RD Dhanuka and Justice VD Bisht directed the woman to pay, within a period of four weeks, a fine of 25,000 INR to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund. They ruled that the failure on the woman’s part to comply with the direction shall make the quashing of the FIR stand vacated.
On 9th December 2020, Delhi High Court granted relief to a man named Lalit Kumar who had been wrongfully booked by a woman by levelling a false case of rape against him. Justice Suresh Kait delivered the judgement quashing the FIR and thereby freeing the man of all charges levelled against him. The woman who had filed the case later on accepted that it was done out of vengeance, “to teach the man a lesson following a tiff”. Although the Court wished to take actions against her for lying, other circumstances were considered, and she wasn’t charged against it.
The woman, who was married with two kids, offered unconditional apology and sought relief on the grounds that her matrimonial life would be affected if actions are taken against her. As per her, the duo had had an altercation in the month of August, post which she was angered. The honourable Justice noted that:
“When the complainant/prosecutrix herself takes the initiative and files the affidavit before this court, stating that she made the complaint due to some misunderstanding and now wants to give quietus to the misunderstanding that arose between the petitioner and the respondent, in my considered opinion, in such cases, there will be no purpose in continuing with the trial”.
On 11th October 2019, a woman in Noida, who had accused a 30-year-old delivery boy of an e-commerce company, wished to drop the charges of ‘attempt of rape’ against him. The delivery boy had gone to the woman’s house to solve some issue with respect to the replacement of a product which she had ordered from the e-commerce company where they entered into an argument, post which the man was charged with ‘outraging her modesty’.
Despite being asked by the concerned police station twice to do so, the woman never appeared before the police to get her statement recorded. At a later point in time, she claimed that it wasn’t she but her sister, who had filed the complaint. On the other hand, the accused showed up and was left after investigation since no evidence could be gathered against him. The e-commerce company took cognizance of the complaint and fired the man, stating:
"Safety is of utmost importance to us, and these allegations are troubling. We are taking immediate actions with our delivery service provider and police as they investigate the case".
In Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit, a 28-year-old woman and three of her associates were booked by the Police for misleading them by making false allegations of gangrape against her husband and two of his relatives. Her brother-in-law was the key conspirator in the case who later got arrested, whereas the woman and two of her associates were still on a run as of 18th November 2020.
They were married back in 2016 and got estranged within a year leading to the woman filing a case of dowry harassment against her husband and his family members. On the day of the hearing, her brother-in-law appeared before the Family Court and accused her husband of abducting the woman. The investigation later found her as being hidden at a relative’s house by her own free will. During the course of this investigation, her family members had demanded a sum of 7 Lakh INR from her husband. In a later case of filing a fake case of gangrape against her husband and two of her relatives, it was found to be concocted for the sole purpose of extorting money from the husband.
On 21st November 2020, in a rare occurrence, a court in Chennai awarded 15 Lakhs INR to a man named Santhosh, who had been accused of raping a woman back in his college days. Both of them belonged to the same community and lived in the same neighbourhood by virtue of which it was decided that they be married. At a later point in time, however, some land-related dispute arose between the two families and the wedding was called off.
Santhosh had been pursuing a degree in Engineering when the woman’s Mother approached his parents, saying he had impregnated their daughter and demanded an immediate arrangement of marriage from the family’s side. When the same was denied by Santhosh, the family booked him under ‘rape’, following which he was arrested and remanded in judicial custody for a period of 95 days. By the time he came out on bail, the woman had delivered a girl child and it was revealed that the DNA of the child did not match with Santhosh’s. Another DNA analysis was ordered by the Court, following which he was acquitted on 10th February 2010 by a Chennai-based Mahila Court.
In the meanwhile, his life changed for the worse. He had to drop out of college and was forced to work as an office assistant. He could not even obtain a commercial driving license because of the seriousness of the charges levelled against him. He had demanded damages worth 30 Lakhs INR.
DOWRY HARASSMENT
The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, deals with the various legal aspects of dowry in India. Section 1 of this Act defines ‘dowry’ as:
“…any property or valuable security given or agreed to be given either directly or indirectly:
a. by one party to a marriage to the other party to the marriage; or
b. by the parents of either party to a marriage or by any other person, to either party to the marriage or to any other person; at or before or any time after the marriage in connection with the marriage of said parties but does not include dower or mahr in the case of persons to whom the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) applies”.
For demanding dowry, too, there are provisions of this Act under which the family of the groom can be booked. The Act prescribes imprisonment of not less than five years and a fine of 50,000 INR or the amount of the dowry, whichever is more.
Dowry is a serious menace in India. Statistics say that an average of 20 women dies every day in India as a consequence of harassment over dowry. These women are either forced to commit suicide or are murdered. And these deaths are the ones that get reported. There is an acute under-reporting of real cases in India. Although criminalised since 1961, dowry is still a very significant part of marriages in India.
In 1983, there was an amendment to the IPC, which include Article 498A
This system of dowry makes it mandatory for the family of the bride to pay something to the family of the groom, which could be either in cash or in kind. A lot of times, even after the marriage is done, the groom’s family comes up with new demands, failure to comply with them makes the bride pay a very serious price.
“In one of the cases reported in Bengaluru in January 2020, a few weeks after marriage, a husband demanded cash despite receiving 1kg gold in dowry as per his demands. When the extra demand was denied, he burnt his wife”.
This practice is basically a manifestation of the prevailing patriarchy in our society. Moreover, the system is deeply rooted in society to the point that a lot of people do not think of it as a ‘crime’ at all.
However, this is also one of the most misused laws in the country. Statistics reveal that men and their families, who were actually innocent, get falsely implicated by extortionists.
Although there are several cases where the laws pertaining to dowry harassment have been misused, the most famous one among them is the Nisha Sharma Dowry Case.
The case dates back to the year 2003. Nisha Sharma was 21 years old back then, and her parents, Dev Dutt Sharma and Hemlata Sharma had given advertisements in the matrimonial section of various newspapers, as is a common trend in the country. Among the first ones to respond to the advertisement was the family of a man named Munish Dalal, a 25-year-old Engineer-turned-Computer Science Professor for a local college. Upon them responding to the advertisement, both the families met and decided to get them married on the 11th of March, 2003, in Noida.
For the wedding, Nisha Sharma’s family had purchased a few gifts, namely, a washing machine, a microwave, a refrigerator and a TV set. However, on the day of the wedding, Nisha Sharma and her family accused the groom’s Mother of having demanded 12 Lakhs INR and a Maruti Esteem Car in the form of ‘dowry’. As per the bride’s family, when an inability to pay the dowry demanded was expressed by her father, they were verbally abused. A scuffle then broke out between the two parties leading to the groom’s mother slapping the bride’s father. Upon this, Nisha Sharma called the Police.
On the other hand, Munish Dalal and his family had a completely different explanation to offer. As per them, on the day of the wedding, there was no one from the bride’s side to welcome their procession. Hence, the groom’s family sent a relative to find out what was wrong. The relative when returning, met a man who introduced himself as Navneet Rai and claimed to be the first husband of Nisha Sharma’s. Then, the bride’s Father appeared on the scene and started misbehaving with the groom’s mother and angrily threw a sandal at her. The bride’s Father denied such allegations claiming he had video recordings of the same.
The wedding was called off and the very next day, Munish Dalal and several of his family members were arrested from their residence at Delhi’s Vikaspuri. His mother was arrested, too, and other relatives were considered as being absconding. Soon thereafter, Navneet Rai claimed to have been married to Nisha Sharma for the past five years. This was denied by her father as an attempt to malign the girl’s image. It was claimed by the family of Nisha Sharma that she was initially interested in marrying Rai but later decided against it because of the man being unemployed. They also claimed that the girl had complained to the college authorities claiming misbehaviour from Rai’s side, which had eventually led to his expulsion from there.
This story had received massive coverage back in 2003 by the national and international media alike. Back in those days, this was the front-page story for almost every major Indian newspaper. Nisha Sharma became an overnight icon for women to follow and look up to. She was interviewed by several newspapers and television channels. She was even invited by a major Indian political party to contest local elections.
This story found its place in The New York Times, where dowry being disguised as gifts was covered in detail by James Brooke. Popular American TV Show on CBS, 60 Minutes, cited the example of this case to shed light on a number of dowry-related or women-centric issues such as bride burning, female foeticide, etc. Indian company Amul popular for its cartoons, covered this incident, too.
Nisha Sharma was being hailed as a feminist icon. Her house would be flocked with activists of women’s rights and equality. All of them were of the view that Nisha Sharma’s family should not have agreed to provide the groom’s family with gifts.
Despite Munish Dalal and Navneet Rai having approached to the Court to delay the marriage, Nisha Sharma got married to a computer engineer named Ashwini Sharma on the 19th of November, 2003. Oprah Winfrey had invited Nisha Sharma, her brother and her husband to her show in January 2004.
Moreover, in 2004 when the case was still under trial, the Government of Delhi decided to include this case as a part of the syllabus taught to students in the schools run by it. The chapter on this case was titled ‘Man in Jail Over Dowry Demand’ and had a controversial cartoon depicting the groom being arrested from the wedding venue for demanding dowry.
A case had been filed on Munish Dalal, his Mother and his Aunt in May 2003. In the mid of May 2003, Munish Dalal was attacked by his fellow inmates in Dasna Jail for being a ‘greedy groom’ and suffered injuries as a consequence of it. His lawyer filed an appeal with the National Human Rights Commission of India and counter-sued Nisha Sharma for adultery and bigamy. On 29th February 2012, on account of lack of proper evidence, Dalal and his family got acquitted by a District Court in Delhi. Navneet Rai, who had been accused by Nisha Sharma’s family of forging marriage-related documents, was acquitted, too, for it could not be proved that the documents had been forged by him.
In January 2013, a complaint was filed against Nisha Sharma and her brother by her own sister-in-law for harassing and beating her for dowry of 12 Lakhs INR.
Later on, after being acquitted, it was observed by Munish Dalal that:
“She didn’t want to marry me but was scared of her parents. By accusing me falsely, she was trying to get out of the marriage without incurring their anger."
In the entire course of this case, Dalal and his family attended the hearings more than 320 times, and Sharma’s family did so 10 times.
This case is a classic example of media trial and dowry harassment in India. The media, back then, had projected Nisha Sharma as somebody every woman should look up to. She received fame as a consequence of this case. However, she ruined the lives of her groom and his family, who were defamed as people who demand dowry, thereby becoming national hate-figures.
What is also evident here is her lack of intent in attending the court proceedings, doing so 10 times in 9 years. Meanwhile, the groom said:
“It happened so fast. I could not gather what was going on. My mother, who was 59 then, was about to retire after her 36 years of service as a senior teacher in a government school. Her pension was also halted. My brother, who owned a shop, was scared due to regular harassment by the goons of Sharma’s Father. My brother had to close his shop. For the last nine years, my family has been surviving on my Sister-in-Law’s salary. Now everyone has changed their views and they are congratulating me. But in all these nine years, my reputation, my career and the financial blow were too much to handle. I don’t know how each member of my family survived.”
Albeit famous, this is not the only case of fake dowry harassment that has happened in India. There have been thousands of such cases, and misusing this law is now more common than ever, thanks to its only-woman-centred approach. While it is true that the menace of dowry does exist in our society and that it needs to be uprooted from society as soon as possible, it cannot conceal the fact that fake dowry cases do get filed and that a lot of lives get ruined as a consequence of fake cases. Some such cases are:
On 21st September 2014, a court in Mangalore had issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against a lady doctor and her Father for falsely framing her husband and in-laws in a dowry case. She hailed from the town of Devangere and resided with her husband only for a period of 15 days after their wedding. As long as she lived with him, the Doctor would force her husband to reside in her parental home by leaving his. The doctor would blackmail him, saying she would file a false case of dowry in case her demands are not met. The husband refused to accompany her to her home, leading to the woman filing a false case of dowry harassment.
The honourable High Court of Bombay, in a case dating back to 2017, had ruled that filing a false dowry case on the husband amounts to cruel treatment on the part of the wife and that it can very well act as a ground for divorce.
On 15th September 2018, the honourable Supreme Court had said:
"The courts constantly remain alive to the situation that though no war takes place, yet neither anger nor vendetta of the aggrieved section should take advantage of the legal provision and harass the other side with influence or espousing the principle of sympathy. The role of the law enforcing agency or the prosecuting agency is sometimes coloured with superlative empathy being totally oblivious of the sensation to make maladroit efforts to compete with the game of supersensitivity. Such a situation brings in a social disaster that has the potentiality to vertically divide the society. The legislature, in its wisdom, has made the offence under Section 498-A IPC cognisable and non-bailable. The fault lies with the investigating agency, which sometimes jumps into action without application of mind.”
The Bench for this case comprised of the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and A.M Khanwilkar.
EVE TEASING
Eve teasing is one of the bitter truths of our society. However, there are strict laws to cover it. Several sections of the Indian Penal Code describe the punishments for it, classified as cognisable and non-compoundable. These Sections are:
1) Section 294
“Whoever, to the annoyance of others;
(a) Does any obscene act in any public place, or
(b) Sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place,
Shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three months, or with fine, or with both.”
2) Section 354
“Whoever assaults or uses criminal force to any woman, intending to outrage or knowing it to be likely that he will thereby outrage her modesty, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one year but which may extend to five years, and shall also be liable to fine.”
3) Section 354A
“Sexual harassment and punishment for sexual harassment.—
(1) A man committing any of the following acts—
physical contact and advances involving unwelcome and explicit sexual overtures; or
i) a demand or request for sexual favours; or
ii) showing pornography against the will of a woman; or
iii) making sexually coloured remarks,
iv) shall be guilty of the offence of sexual harassment.
(2) Any man who commits the offence specified in clause (i) or clause (ii) or clause (iii) of sub-section (1) shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
(3) Any man who commits the offence specified in clause (iv) of sub-section (1) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.]”
4) Section 354D
“(1) Any man who—
i) follows a woman and contacts, or attempts to contact such woman to foster personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest by such woman; or
(ii) monitors the use by a woman of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication, commits the offence of stalking, provided that such conduct shall not amount to stalking if the man who pursued it proves that--
(i) it was pursued the purpose of preventing or detecting crime, and the man accused of stalking had been entrusted with the responsibility of prevention and detection of crime by the State; or
(ii) (ii) it was pursued under any law or to comply with any condition or requirement imposed by any person under any law; or
(iii) (iii) in particular circumstances such conduct was reasonable and justified.
(2) Whoever commits the offence of stalking shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine; and be punished on a second or subsequent conviction, with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, and shall also be liable to fine.]”
5) Section 509
“Whoever, intending to insult the modesty of any woman, utters any words, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or that such gesture or object shall be seen, by such woman, or intrudes upon the privacy of such woman, 1 [shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, and also with fine].”
Sufficient to say, there exist enough provisions in the Law of the land to ensure punishment for those found indulged in eve-teasing. However, a lot of times, these stringent laws may not prove fruitful for the real victim if the perpetrator is more powerful, which is the case generally.
However, these laws on eve-teasing are also prone to misuse specifically by women because they automatically assume that the victim must be a woman only. Let us take a case to understand this better.
On 23rd August 2015, a 21-year-old student of St. Stephen’s College named Jasleen Kaur posted a picture of a man on his bike and claimed that he had passed obscene comments at her. The post read:
“This man (a misnomer) made obscene comments on me today at around 8 pm near Aggarwal, Tilak Nagar. He was on a silver Royal Enfield, vehicle number - DL 4S CE 3623. When I told him that I’m clicking his picture and I'm going to file a complaint against him, he responded by posing for the picture and said- "Do whatever you want. Go file a complaint and see what I’ll do then".
But there was something that is disturbing me much more than his obscene remarks- the fact that it was a red traffic signal and 20 other people heard what he was telling me. Yes, no one minded. No one intervened. No one stood up for me. I decided to stand up for myself and lodged a complaint in Tilak Nagar police station with his photo and vehicle number.
Share his picture and vehicle number as much as you can to pin this creep. (only if you care).
Today he had the audacity to say these things to me; tomorrow he will have the audacity to move one step ahead and do it.
PS- I could've written here exactly what he said in his comments, but I don't want FB to remove my post.”
As per Jasleen Kaur’s account, the man named Sarvjeet Singh was trying to jump the signal, and she asked him to respect the traffic rules. Upon this, the two entered into an argument, and the man resorted to using obscene language.
As per Sarvjeet Singh, he was trying to turn left, which is allowed even during a red-light signal, but Jasleen Kaur was adamant that traffic rules were being broken by him. Upon receiving a reply from the man, the woman clicked pictures of the man sitting on his bike, which were posted by her on Social Media later on.
As soon as it was posted, the Post went viral on Social Media, receiving more than 1 lakh ‘shares’. The Chief Minister of Delhi had tweeted in favour of Jasleen Kaur, asking other women in Delhi to follow her example and speak up for themselves. The Chief of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) also supported the woman. Impressed with her bravery, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) announced that she would be given 5,000 INR for it.
The Case went on for three years, and with the woman getting settled in Canada, she did not attend any hearing for three years citing “academic commitments” to justify her absence for three years. Sarvjeet Singh, on the other hand, was referred to as a ‘pervert’, lost his job and had to attend every hearing of the Court which could not resume because of Jasleen Kaur’s absence. On the 24th of October 2019, four years after the incident, judgement was passed by the Court which acquitted Sarvjeet Singh of all charges against him by holding him innocent. The Court observed that “the testimony of the complainant is not trustworthy and casts serious doubt on the case of the prosecution."
Therefore, it may be said that the laws meant for the protection of women get highly misused. Although generalisations are wrong and that the plight of women in our society is not as good as it should have been a fact, it cannot be used as an argument to justify and defend the indefensible deceit that is used by some of them use these days. Sexual assaults, rapes, dowry harassment and eve-teasing are very serious and real issues. When even one person misuses these laws for reasons best known to her, she lets down a number of women who genuinely deserve justice and for whom these laws are really needed.
Underreporting of crimes is a real problem in India. Especially when the crimes are as heinous as rapes and when the perpetrators are acquaintances of hers, a woman would not come out of the closet. Nobody comes to her rescue. She is deserted, and her bodily integrity surpassed. On a similar note, the menace of dowry is a widespread one. So many women, especially from the remote parts of India, get tortured by their partners and in-laws for failure to produce dowry. Several families get destroyed, and a lot of women get reduced to mere money-making machines. Eve teasing can have serious repercussions on the mind of a girl. She may not stir out of her house again for fear of being harassed. The point here is that these crimes are very serious and require the urgent attention of society as a whole.
However, when there is false reporting of cases of this sort, people believe that it is a trend of doing so and cast serious doubts on the authenticity of the genuine ones. This is an injustice to those who really suffer or have suffered in the past because questioning the very authenticity of their cases is an added atrocity on them, the actual atrocities having been committed already in the form of the crimes.
Hence, as a society, we need to be cautious as to who we support. Irrespective of region, religion or ideology, these cases of false reporting are on the rise. This is injustice to the family of the man who gets wrongfully accused, which should not be the case for a just society founded on the principles of harmonious and lawful coexistence. To sum up, it can be said:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Disclaimer: Kindly note that the views and opinions expressed are of the author, and not Law Colloquy.
REFERENCES:
1. Chauhan, N., NHRC Study Recommends Protecting Rape Accused From ‘False Cases’ till Found Guilty, Hindustan Times (10 December 2020), https://mub.me/2PTy
2.Bombay High Court Fines Woman Rs 25,000 For False Rape Complaint: Report, NDTV (11 December 2020), https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bombay-high-court-fines-woman-rs-25-000-for-false-rape-complaint-report-2285822
3.Garg, A., Apology Accepted in Fake Rape Case, Delhi HC Quashes FIR , The Times of India (12 December 2020), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/apology-accepted-in-fake-rape-case-hc-quashes-fir/articleshow/79632105.cms
4.Woman Accuses Amazon Delivery Man of Rape Attempt, Now Wants To Drop Case, NDTV (12 December 2020), https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/noida-woman-accuses-delivery-agent-of-rape-bid-later-wants-fir-quashed-2115058.
5.Agrawal, K., Woman, 3 Others Booked for Lodging False Gang Rape Case Against Husband, Kin, The Times of India (13 December 2020), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bareilly/woman-3-others-booked-for-lodging-false-gang-rape-case-against-husband-kin/articleshow/79268619.cms
6.Man Who Battled False Rape Case Wins ?15 Lakh Compensation, Times Of India (13 December 2020), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/man-who-battled-false-rape-case-wins-15-lakh-compensation/articleshow/79325998.cms.
7.Gupta, R., 2020. Dowry Deaths Still A Threatening Reality In India, But Until When? SheThePeople TV (13 December 2020), https://www.shethepeople.tv/top-stories/opinion/dowry-deaths-reality-in-india-but-until-when/.
8.Nair, M., 2017. Is The Dowry Law Being Misused? Statistics Can Be Interpreted To Say ‘Yes’ Or ‘No’, Hindustan Times (13 December 2020), https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/is-the-dowry-law-being-misused-statistics-can-be-interpreted-to-say-yes-or-no/story-sG1nIm58Wik6LpY4KqlOiN.html.
9.Dutta, K., 2012, 9 Yrs Later, Accused Let Off In Nisha Sharma Dowry Case, Hindustan Times (15 December 2020), https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/9-yrs-later-accused-let-off-in-nisha-sharma-dowry-case/story-W40A3dvCmtU50P2Cer3AxJ.html.
10.'Give Iron Woman Award To My Mom, Aunt', Deccan Herald (15 December 2020), https://www.deccanherald.com/content/231691/give-iron-woman-award-my.html.
11.Pinto, S., False Dowry Compliant, Court Issues Arrest Warrant For Woman Doctor, The Times of India. (15 December 2020), https://mub.me/hxCs.
12.Wife Foists False Dowry Case, HC Lets Man Divorce,-The Times Of India (15 December 2020), https://mub.me/715C.
13.Dugar, P., Talkinglegal: How To Tackle Eve Teasing, Bangalore Mirror (16 December 2020), https://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/opinion/others/talkinglegal-how-to-tackle-eve-teasing/articleshow/72045649.cms.
14.Bharadwaj, A., 2018. Delhi Woman Who Accused Biker Of Molestation 3 Years Ago Finally Appears In Court. ThePrint.(16 December 2020), https://theprint.in/india/governance/delhi-woman-who-accused-biker-of-molestation-3-years-ago-finally-appears-in-court/157948/.
