Protest against the Unconstitutional Domestic Violence Act in Mumbai :: Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs)

Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) in Mumbai have organized a protest against the same on 28^th August 2011 from 2 PM – 4 PM at Azad Maidan.

The insanity, unconstitutionality and the male hatred inherent in the marital laws of India is no longer a new thing. It is a well known fact that there is a dire need for a drastic rationalization and de-genderization of the marital laws in India.

India, is one of the first countries to have a non-bailable, cognizable and non-compoundable criminal offense for marriage breaking which is not only inter-gender discriminatory but also intra-gender discriminatory. It’s the highly controversial, draconian and inhuman law of the Indian Penal Code – the IPC Section 498A. This law considers husband and his family as “Guilty until Proven Innocent” and is a very facilitating “tool of arrest on demand” since 1983.

This law has been responsible for the arrest of millions of innocent citizens of India including husbands, mothers, fathers and siblings of husbands, octogenarians, infants and has also abetted the suicides of a few million people ever since its inception.

As if, all this wasn’t enough, the Govt. of India was benevolent enough to introduce another gender biased piece of legislation – “The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act”. As the name suggests, it is applicable only to women. But, to be specific, to married women aka wives only!

Hence, this comprehensive Act, conceptualized, authored and drafted by the present Additional Solicitor General of India, Indira Jaisingh, ubiquitously assumes that only wives, in the entire family, are victims of domestic violence and other family members derive some kind of sadistic pleasure from inflicting domestic violence upon wives.

To, add to the woes, the citizens of India have been mass fooled by this Act. The Act got passed citing it a civil remedy to Domestic Violence and that it would be faster compared to the criminal remedy aka the Section 498A. However, the Act contain certain terms analogous to the Trojan Virus like jail, bail, arrest, facility to file Section 498A case via this Act, imprisonment and last but not the least, the Act would follow summary trial procedures as laid down in the CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code).

In layman terms, any civil act cannot have the above provisions. This combination makes abuse of husbands and breaking of families very easy. Being quasi-civil, the case gets filed before a pizza is ordered at the Pizza Hut and its various draconian provisions leave no stone unturned in whipping away the semblance of what is known as justice for the husband.

The DV Act, as it is affectionately called by its victims – the Harassed Husbands – has many a weapons to destroy husband and his family. Some of them are listed here:-

1. It has provisions for ordering interim maintenance over and above that ordered in Section 125 CrPC (Refer Section 20(d) of the Act) – inbuilt violation of the principle of “Double Jeopardy”.

2. It has provisions for ordering a husband to refrain from entering his own house.

3. It has provisions for ordering a father to stay away from his own children – inbuilt formula to create a fatherless society that can result in more crime in the society.

4. It has provisions to jail a husband on mere statement by wife (Refer section 31 and 32 of the Act) – inbuilt violation of Articles 20, 21 and 22 of the Indian Constitution that jointly provide the “Right to Fair and Free Trial” to any citizen of India. This single provision renders the Act as unconstitutional and liable to be scrapped, provided there is willingness in the Indian Govt. to do so.

5. It has provisions for a case under Section 498A to be filed – this defies the very argument with which the Act was filed. It was told by the feminists that since 498A cases are taking very long time to finish, we should have a civil law and now this very civil law has a secret tunnel leading back to the same Section 498A. This clearly shows the moral bankruptcy of the feminists and intellectual bankruptcy of the lawmakers declaring either of them ineligible to propose or formulate any laws.

6. There is no proper definition of offense in the Act and a mere reading of the Act makes the very institution of marriage as the onset of Domestic Violence on a wife as if husbands have no other job in life but to beat their wives.

This Act is very dangerous for husbands and there is a dire need to protest against it and urge the Indian Govt. to repeal the Act.