Case title:
Social action forum for Manav Adhikar and another vs. Union of India .
Date of Order:
14 September, 2018
Bench:
Hon’ble Justice D Misra
Parties:
Petitioner- Social action forum for Manav Adhikar and another
Respondent- Union of India Ministry of Law and Justice and ors
IMPORTANT PROVISION
Section 498A, IPC
OVERVIEW
The SC of India in case Rajesh Sharma analyzed the scenario and the responsibility of the offense and further offered directions to confront the same after receiving a plea to stop domestic violence in India. The petitioner argued that the above-mentioned Section had lost its significance as a result of the judiciary's subjectivity and that 498 A's legislative aim had been compromised by the lack of a standardized monitoring system. Due to the limitations and restrictions set by the court in the aforementioned case, this Section's deterrent effect is lost.
After the court in Rajesh Sharma and others v. State of UP and another issued guidelines to check the alleged tendency of the women and no arrest shall be made before the report of the commission, the judge can dispose of the case if he finds the dispute regarding a matrimonial agreement when the parties reach a settlement in court.
ISSUES RAISED
Whether the Rajesh Sharma case court could have issued such instructions based on the method of interpretation?
ARGUMENTS ADVANCED BY THE APPELLANT
The court's dilution of the Section 498 A provision by making it a bailable offense and adding several restrictions has rendered the social purpose of the law useless, and the lack of standardized systems for monitoring and systematically reviewing incidents of violence against women has rendered the legislative intent useless. The court restricted owing to the misuse of the provision, but there is no evidence to support this, and an issue cannot be a basis for imposing a restriction, as the court did not take mental injury into account throughout the trial.
ARGUMENTS ADVANCED BY THE RESPONDENT
- As the court found in Arnesh Kumar v. the State of Bihar and another, the provision is utilized as a weapon rather than a shield.
- Blackmailing the bride and groom's relatives into filing a 498 A complaint is the simplest way to harass them and goes against the letter of the law. One of the profitable avenues for police wrongdoing is the use of the power to arrest, which is frequently seen as a tool of tyranny and abuse.
- The approach is to detain someone first, and then move on to the other steps. That is abhorrent and has to be controlled. According to statistics on crime in India from 2012 given by the National Crime Records Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs, 1,97,762 persons were detained for Section 498-A
JUDGEMENT ANALYSIS
- The court looked at the fact that, in some cases, such as Vishaka & Ors v. State of Rajasthan and others, Lakshmi Kant Pandey v. Union of India, the judiciary had issued instructions in the absence of law to further a fundamental right.
- This was relevant to the question of whether the instructions, as in the case of Rajesh Sharma, might have been issued by the interpretation process.
- The courts do not have the power to decide whether a specific governmental policy is wise and necessary. According to Census Commissioner and Others v. R. Krishnamurthy, the court can only get involved if the policy being implemented is wholly capricious, unsupported by reason, or wholly arbitrary, breaking the basic clause of Art 14.
- In addition, it was decided (Suresh Seth v. Commissioner, Indore Municipal Organization, and others) that no court may compel a legislature to approve a specific statute.
- The court further held that the investigative agency is to blame since it acts without thinking because the legislator, in its wisdom, created the crime under Sec. 498-A cognizable but unidentifiable.
- The court asserted that it was striking that the Constitution Bench had not suggested that preliminary inquiry could be conducted in matrimonial or family conflicts when reviewing the ruling in Lalita Kumari v. State of Uttar Pradesh.
- The District Legal Services Authority created the Family Welfare Committee, and the court determined that the Committee's authority and directives were unfair based on the aforementioned decisions and factors.
CONCLUSION
- The Supreme Court had, among other things, ordered the District Legal Services Authority to set up family welfare committees in each district to look into any Section 498A complaints that were lodged there.
- The court further ordered that no arrests be made in the case until the Committee's report was received. The paper will subsequently be located by the prosecuting officer or the magistrate.
- In cases where a settlement has been reached, the court further asserted that the District and Sessions Judge or any other senior judicial officer would have the authority to decide how to proceed, including whether to end the criminal case if the proceedings were being challenged because of a matrimonial dispute.
- It is crucial to note that the Supreme Court issued recommendations in the Rajesh Sharma case to prevent alleged misuse of Section 498A.
- The main issue raised in the appeal was the necessity to check a woman's purported inclination to involve the entire family in the resolution of marital conflicts when filing a complaint under Section 498A.
