Headlines
Men's rights activists demand reforms in Section 498-A of the IPC
New Delhi, May 5
Seeking reforms in family
laws, a group of men's rights activists from across the country gathered
at Jantar Mantar here and staged a sit-in on Tuesday.
The protesters later submitted a charter of demands to the Bhartiya Janata Party's national president Amit Shah.
"Our
demand is basically against Section 498-A of the IPC (Indian Penal
Code) and also against the move of the government to make the offence
under it compoundable," rights activists Swarup Sarkar told IANS.
He said making the law compoundable will not serve any purpose.
Sarkar
is the founder of the Delhi chapter of NGO Save Family Foundation,
which organised the protest in association with Bangalore-based Child
Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP) that is fighting for
shared parenting in case of divorce.
He said Section 498-A must be scrapped as it has been the most misused law in the country.
The
Supreme Court in December last said false complaints under Section
498-A against innocent in-laws alleging cruelty and harassment were on
the rise.
"For no fault, the in-laws, especially old parents of
the husband, are taken to jail the moment a false complaint is filed
against them by a woman under Section 498-A. By roping in in-laws
without a reason and for settling a score with the husband, the false
and exaggerated 498-A complaints are causing havoc to marriages,"
observed a bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice A.K. Sikri.
"While
the Justice Malimath Committee (or Committee on Reforms of the Criminal
Justice System) and the Committee on Petitions of Rajya Sabha have
recommended that offence under Section 498-A be made bailable, the
government seems to be working on making it compoundable," CRISP
president Kumar V. Jahgirdar told IANS over phone from Bangalore.
Even now many men are getting arrested in matrimonial disputes on flimsy grounds.
"We
are also demanding making of the Domestic Violence Act gender-neutral
so that the harassed husbands could also file complaints against the
abusive wives," he said.
The constitution, said Jahgirdar,
guarantees equality in gender. "Surprisingly, no one believes that the
men are also victims of domestic violence. Every year hundreds of
married men are committing suicide due to family tensions."
He said the activists, after taking signatures against the biased law, submitted a memorandum to BJP president Shah in Delhi.
CRISP's
activists, comprising families of the affected men, from its regional
chapters in Chandigarh, Shimla, Delhi and Lucknow participated in the
protest.
Social activist Santhoshkumar Potdar from Thelasangha
village of Belgaum in Karnataka, who is fighting against misuse of law
by women and reached the national capital by covering more than 2,500 km
on foot from his hometown, demanded setting up a national commission
for men and a separate ministry for the welfare of men.