IndiaPost.com - Draconian 498- a law that affects NRIs

As the world grows smaller and literally becomes a global village, through information technology one comes to understand that there is both good and bad in other cultures. Part of the ingrained culture of India is the dowry system in which the girls parents during negotiations for the marriage agree to give cash and other gifts to the boys side.

In China and Thailand it's the other way around where it is the girls side that receives the cash and gifts. Dowry is given in the belief that it will help the new couple set themselves up into a comfortable lifestyle. Unfortunately in India's booming economy dowry has turned into a form of blackmail and even after the initial payment of cash and gifts has been made, the boys side then makes further demands on the girls side. And pressure is brought to bear through the newly married bride who has moved into the house of the boys family.

At times the pressure has been so great that it has led to suicides by newly married brides and has even resulted in "accidental" bride burnings. In the past decade or so this rot has spread to Non Resident Indians (those living abroad) who go to India, get married and after receiving the dowry then return to their countries of residence and literally vanish.

Though these cases are not widespread especially in a country that has over a billion people they are still a disgrace to society, and as is commonly said "even one case is one too many". The Government has done some good work in this regard by bringing out a booklet as an advisory for potential brides and their families intending to get married to NRI's, making it law that every marriage has to be registered and now that the photographs of the spouses have to be affixed to the passports of the NRI.

But the tide has turned and now the pendulum has swung to the other side - unfortunately so far to the other side that it has effected whole families, many of whom are innocent. The disease of looking at marriage as a business has also spread to the largest democracy in the world - India. Politicians there with an eye on the vote bank passed a one sided law which is so unfair, that it had led not only to the dis-integration of the basic concept of marriage, but has destroyed entire families. There have been quite a few suicides due to this law.

The Domestic Violence Act which was passed in 2005 at the instigation by radical feminist groups, especially the National Commission on Women, who have the quiet sponsorship of the ruling party in India. This law states that "only a woman can file a complaint against her male partner". A man who is a victim of domestic violence has no recourse under the law.

And comprehensive studies by various groups have found that women are no less abusive as men in intimate relationships - yes even in India. Giving such sweeping legal powers to women also tends to give quite a few of them the opportunity to take advantage of the law and hold men to blackmail and legal terrorism. This part of the law is nothing else but systematic legal victimization of men as it is one sided and withholds legal protection to male victims.

Domestic laws in the western world are gender neutral and provide protection to any victim - be it a male or female. But the Indian version of the law prohibits any male victim from seeking recourse under this law.

To make matters worse the new anti-dowry law (498A of the IPC) has led to endless cases of misuse by women that even the Supreme Court in India has termed it "legal terrorism". Here a woman can go to any police station in India and register a complaint which may be vague, unspecific or exaggerated.

Without making even the minimum investigation the officer in charge can put out an arrest warrant for the husband, and to make this law even more draconian, arrest warrants will also be put out for the immediate family of the male. In a landmark judgement the Honorable Mr Justice J D Kapoor of the High Court in New Delhi in dismissing a petition on May 19, 2003 (Savitri Devi, Petitioner Vs Ramesh Chand, respondent), ruled that there was "rampant misuse" of the 498A law by the petitioner and further made a request of the government to make the law "compound able and bailable".

He went further to say in his judgement that the investigating and prosecuting agencies in dealing with 498A cases were "abusing the provisions of the law". Sad to say many officers of these agencies who are poorly paid are susceptible to bribery and corruption and in this regard India is quite notorious. Judge Kapoor ended by saying "that the provisions of Section 498A/406 of the Indian Penal Code was being misused to such an extent that it was hitting at the foundation of marriage itself and has proved to be not so good for the society at large".

This law is so draconian that if the petitioner charges that family members of her spouse also harassed her all of them are liable for arrest - right from grandparents to school going children and even relatives who may not be residing in the country. The offence has been made cognizable and non-bailable. When there is a law that instills fear in a human, who has no recourse to the law, then it is nothing else but state sponsored terrorism.

T Vignesh of Salem in Tamilnadu had an arrest warrant out for him due to a false 498A case registered against him by his wife in August 2003 and obtained a 'stay of his arrest' from the Court. But the police still went ahead and arrested him and his parents and tortured them. On being released the parents committed suicide.

Ultimately Vignesh was cleared of all charges by the Court and the police officials were punished. Take the case of Uma Challa. Not knowing that her brother's wife had filed a complaint in India under 498A, she and her brother Anil Kumar Challa rushed to India from New York on hearing that their father was on his death bed.

On landing in India in 2005 both of them were arrested at the airport and held in police custody. Before they could go through the various legal proceedings for release their father passed away and was cremated. Another example of misuse of 498A is the case of Dr Rajiv Mehta who works in New Jersey. He met his wife Nalini Gupta in April 1994 and got married to her in October of that year as she had become pregnant.

As he later on came to suspect her of cheating on him he had a detective follow her and get the evidence he needed to get a divorce from her in the Superior Court of New Jersey. Dr Mehta was also awarded custody of his two daughters by the Court. Later on his wife pleading with him asked for their two daughters to be sent to India to see her father who she claimed was on his death bed. Dr Mehta sent the children to India.

That was four years ago and till date he has not seen them as his wife has refused to send them back. Ms Gupta has also filed a 498A case in New Delhi against Dr Mehta. The US Government has revoked her passport on the grounds that she did not respect the judgements of a US Court and a red corner notice has been issued against her by Interpol. Presently Ms Gupta still calls Dr Mehta and threatens him saying she will use her connections with her employer Anil Ambani of Reliance Infocomm and with Montek Singh Ahluwalia of the Planning Commission of India who are both close to the Prime Minister of India.

Presently his wife has asked the Indian courts to grant her a divorce and has further asked them to declare the US divorce null and void. Over four years of litigation there have been endless delays and postponements of the case in the Delhi courts and despite Dr Mehta petitioning Indian politicians and consular officials he is told by them that there is nothing they can do as the Constitution has made no provision for the protection of the husband or his family.

He has also been told by the Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi that no politician of any other government officials will interfere in these matters as they are scared of being picketed by women's groups. Yet Minister Ravi and others come regularly to the United States and approach non-resident Indians for investments in India.

After Judge J D Kapoor's remarks in the New Delhi High Court the All India Democratic Women's Association took out a demonstration against the judge and 19 of the demonstrators were arrested for violating the prohibitory orders of the Court by forcing their way into the Courts premises. Vandana Jhingan of TV Asia, Chicago Bureau asked Minister Ravi in Chicago in July 2006 as what was being done to protect the rights of husbands and the Minister replied that the law was made on the recommendations of the National Commission on Women and went on to say that "husbands had recourse in the judicial process".

And Minister Ravi has faced this question from aggrieved husband's right from New York to San Francisco. But if a complaint is filed in India how many times can an American Citizen go to India to solve the matter. First he will be arrested at the airport, and then he will have to seek bail, and then start fighting the actual case against him.

In India these procedures take time with endless adjournments. Not too many jobs in the US will give an employee time off every month to attend court in India. And who will bear all this un-necessary expense of going to India every month for most probably the next few years.

See the case of Dr Rajiv Mehta above. Anyway after the meeting was officially closed Minister Ravi came to Ms Jhingan and told her that she should not ask such questions in public, to which she replied that since it affected the public she would continue asking these questions.

This abuse of the anti-dowry laws has become so serious that even the Department of State in the US has published a travel warning on its web site www.travel.state.gov about dowry visa demands for travelers to India. It is said that the warning was published as the problem has become quite widespread.

A spokesperson for the State Department in Washington DC said that "American citizens are often extremely desirable" to Indian families with marriageable daughters. If one goes to www.498a.org one will see that most of these fraudulent cases have been filed by the spouses against their husbands in order to extort money and there are hundreds of such cases which have resulted in severe mental, emotional, financial and social trauma.

Most cases are against those who are professionals i.e. those who are doctors, engineers or information specialists. There is yet a case to be filed against a husband who owns a grocery or candy store. And while I have documentation from husbands who are also victims from the Middle East and as far away as Australia, it is the Americans who are the hardest hit. This is because they are high end earners in various professions.

The latest twist in this problem is that over zealous or corrupt police officers, especially in the State of Andhra Pradesh, are now requesting Interpol to issue red corner notices for those supposedly absconding under 498A. In 1980 when I visited Interpol I noted that red corner notices were only issued for the most wanted international criminals like terrorists etc who were considered extremely dangerous.

Unfortunately Interpol is issuing these notices on the request of the Government of India. On the flip side the Inspector General of Police Rajinder Singh in the State of Punjab has passed orders that an arrest in a dowry case should only take place after a thorough and comprehensive enquiry as his department has found that a large number of cases that had been filed under 498A were frivolous.

Vaishali Superintendent of Police Shobha Ohatker says that 80% of the total cases of alleged dowry cases are lodged by so called victims relatives for blackmailing the in-laws. She went further to add that married women often file these cases under pressure from their greedy parents. She finally ended by saying that these cases were being lodged because of a lack of social protest against the lodging of false cases.

The Prime Minister of India and the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs in Delhi have been bombarded with letters from aggrieved husbands in the US, but to no avail. So long as we have corrupt politicians governing in India, and most of them have criminal records, there will never be any fairness in the law. These politicians once elected will do anything to cling to power and one way is through "vote bank politics".

And then when there are wimps (reminds me of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's remark - "girlie men") like Minister Vayalar Ravi who is scared of women's groups and even says it in open forums, then one can only wonder what sort of elected officials there are in New Delhi. Dr Thomas Abraham, Chairman of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin stated that GOPIO had made a public Statement of Support for the effected NRI's.

The statement reads "There have been numerous cases about the spousal abuses where unsuspecting young ladies from India got married to overseas males and then are tortured in various ways. GOPIO has been urging the Government of India to protect its citizens from being abused for quite some time. We are glad that the Government of India is creating a mechanism to help those abused and deserted brides".

The statement goes further to say that "However we have heard of many cases of misuse of anti-dowry law (IPC-498a) by unscrupulous women to extort money and harass their husband's family. This gender based law may have been enacted with good intent but when such laws grossly violate the liberty and dignity of an average man and his family members, we urge modification of the law to eliminate the element of harassment in its application".

Dr (Ms) Mysorekar, one of the Founder members and present President of the oldest Hindu temple in the US said that the law was unfair as both parties have to be protected and that no person is above the law.

She went further to say that she felt sad that such a day had come to India. Krish Radhakrishnan, past President of the Federation of Indian Americans said he is disgusted with the provisions of this 498A law and added that this sort of nonsense will only go on in India which will only bring a bad name to the country.

Many a consular official I have spoken to in the US are sympathetic to the plight of those who have a case against them but don't say so officially as they don't want to upset their political bosses in Delhi. What needs to be done is to initially bar those with criminal records from contesting for elections. Easier said than done but one has to start somewhere.

Secondly the law should be made fair for "both" men and women. And after the law has been balanced and if a man or woman is found guilty the law should come down heavily on the guilty party. But only after due process.

Presently the law is such that it totally favors women without giving the man even the semblance of a fighting chance to clear his name. Finally these radical women's groups can work off their excessive energy by conducting seminars for the mothers of potential brides to stop giving dowry and for the mothers of potential bridegrooms to stop asking for dowry.

Hopefully this way the curse of dowry can be removed from India's culture and bring it more within the norms of the largest democracy that it claims to be.