S.498A IPC Not Misused By All But Is Misunderstood, Society's Mindset Obstructs Women From Reporting Domestic Abuse: Justice Neela Gokhale

Justice Dr Neela Gokhale on Friday said that Section 498A IPC has not been misused but misunderstood by everyone.

The judge stated that while section 498A may be misused by a very handful women but that cannot be used to "paint the entire drawing board in one colour."

"I can say that section 498A is not misused but it is misunderstood by everyone. But it's time, we as the Bar and the Bench must rise to the ocassion and give proper advice to our clients," she said.

The mindset that "Doli me baith ke aayi hai toh Arthi pe hi jayegi" (if she comes in a palanquin she will leave in a pyre) is one of the biggest hurdles for women to report domestic violence meted out to them by their husband and in-laws, the Bombay High Court judge, added.

The judge cited a 2003 government report which revealed that more than 30 per cent married woman face physical, sexual and emotional torture at the hands of her husband and his close relatives.

"These are only the reported cases. There may be several thousand such cases which are not even reported. This is because this mindset that 'Doli me baith ke aayi hai toh ab Arthi me hi jayegi.' This is a biggest hurdle for women to come out and report violence," Justice Gokhale stressed.

This, the judge said is because of the "societal expectations" or the manner in which the society is "conditioned." She said that just like maintaining peace in the family and keeping it intact is the responsibility of all the family members but owing to the "patriarchal" mindset, it is considered to be the responsibility of the women alone, in the house.

The judge was speaking at an "interactive lecture" organised by the Interactive Lawyers Association for Women (ILAW) on the topic "Use and Misuse of Section 498A."

Speaking about the issue, the judge made it clear that no woman would ever file a false complaint or misuse this provision meant for protecting women against dowry harassment.

"Sometimes, it happens that a woman, when seek maintenance, husband and in-laws make all sorts of excuses to avoid paying her the amount. So, to get the maintenance, she files a section 498A case and ropes in the husband's sister, who may be living at a different place. It is then the in-laws make the payments because they do not want their daughter to be troubled in a litigation," Justice Gokhale explained.

Therefore, the judge said, such roping in of in-laws is down only because of an underlying necessity.

"I being a woman, do not think any woman would want to harass husband and his family by litigation... She would only need basic things like maintenance etc...I don't see any woman would file false cases unless there is an underlying necessity," the judge said.

But amid such cases of overimplication, the judge emphasized that the "genuine victims" suffer as their interests get jeopardized.

"While sitting on the bench, we come across say 10 cases in a day, wherein the ingredients of section 498A are not made out and there is overimplication. May be the 11th case is a genuine one... But because of the first 10 cases of overimplication, how do we see at the 11th one? May be the 11th one should be the first one and not the 10 matters on the board. Like this, the interests of the genuine cases get jeopardized. This is the greatest fear we have. This is extremely unfortunate," the judge said.

The judge also told the lawyers present in the lecture to give "practical" advice to the aggrieved women, who approach them and not "entangle" them in protracted litigation.

"I will only say that you all need to give advice for practical relief to the women, who approach you. You need to differentiate for them, between, what is a routine discord and what is cruelty under section 498A. Chiding a woman for her mistake would not per se amount to cruelty but constantly taunting her and insulting her on flimsy grounds is cruelty," the judge said.

The event concluded with the judge felicitating the newly designated women seniors of the HC - Seema Sarnaik, Neeta Karnik and Manjiri Shah. The event was organised under advocate Anita Castelino.