Women often commit perjury while filing cases, yet go unpunished
Laws that were made to protect women from violence and abuse have become a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. This becomes clear from the cases described below, of persons coming under such unbearable pressure to either end their lives to escape harassment or shell out their life’s savings to strike a compromise. Others spend precious years of their lives doing rounds of courts in a bid to prove their innocence.
♦ On 14 October 2015, a quarrel between two neighbours in a small locality in Delhi reached an ugly climax. Frequent fights over parking and waterlogging escalated into ‘attempt to rape’ charges, with women from these homes lodging FIRs against each other’s husbands.
♦ In another case in Delhi’s Dwarka township, a 70-year-old man and his son got into a verbal argument with a woman in their neighbourhood over a petty issue. Even though several people witnessed the verbal fight, police registered FIRs under sections relating to molestation and outraging modesty of a woman.
♦ A gangrape case filed by a woman against three men in Delhi fell flat when evidence proved the incident was a complete fabrication. The accused men, who had spent months in jail, produced a video in which the complainant and her mother demanded Rs 5 crore to settle the matter.
♦ The Gujarat High Court recently heard the bail application of a man accused of gangraping a woman. He claimed he was falsely implicated, saying that the woman had slapped rape cases on several other persons as part of an extortion racket. She had filed cases under Section 498A in several police stations and had been married nine times. The court granted bail, with the woman claiming she filed the complaint under somebody else’s influence.
♦ On 5 October, Rakesh Pilania, a young manager with the Royal Bank of Scotland, jumped to his death in Gurgaon allegedly because his wife threatened to file a false dowry case. Even death did not save him as his widow registered a case under Section 498A, naming him and his family a day after his death.
♦ Barely four days after Rakesh’s suicide, an old man in Polangi village of Haryana’s Rohtak district hanged himself, leaving a suicide note citing similar threats by his daughter-in-law.
These cases are not rare instances but a daily occurrence in various parts of India. So what’s fuelling this phenomenon that has also been equated to ‘legal terrorism’ by the Supreme Court?
