Economic Highlights
New Delhi, 25
September 2015
Misuse Of Rape Laws
LACUNAE IN GENDER EMPOWERMENT
By Shivaji Sarkar
Laws are meant to protect. But the allegations
have to be true as nobody should have a complaint of being implicated in false
cases. While the premise of law is often used in its spirit, there are some
which are often not applied judiciously. Whereby, it might hurt, damage
reputation and costs billions to the person along-with the employer and
society.
Pertinently, a Delhi court’s concern vis-à-vis a false complaint against a man has raised many
questions. On 28 January an Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said women
filing false rape complaints should be punished. His observation was in a case
against a Delhi
businessman at the behest of someone who wanted to settle scores with him.
Justice Bhat defined the case “as a classic example of how men are being
falsely implicated in rape cases to settle personal scores”
Observing that the accused even after his acquittal has to live with the
trauma throughout his life, the judge added, “Time has come when the courts
should deal firmly with women filing false rape complaints. These women, who
turn out to be tormentors and not victims, should be punished under the
appropriate provisions of law”.
The Metropolitan Magistrate Shivani Chauhan also dismissed the false
complaint of a woman in a dowry case and imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
In fact, in 2013 the Delhi
High Court too had commented that women were using fabricated rape cases for
personal crusade, harassment, extortion and forcing men to marry them. In December,
2014, the Supreme Court also made similar observations.
Significantly, Minister of
State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary told the Lok Sabha during the
monsoon session that as many as 31,292 cases of alleged cruelty by husbands and
in-laws, filed by women under Section 498A of the IPC between 2011-13 were
found to be false or a mistake of fact or law after police investigation.
Similarly, a total of 1,207
cases of insult to a woman’s modesty (Section 509 of the IPC) were found to be untrue
by the police. Alongside, the number of cases under this Section has also
increased from 386 in 2011 to 482 in 2013. Resulting, in the Home Ministry issuing
two advisories to States to curb misuse of Section 498A of the IPC.
Further, the Delhi Commission
of Women in a report last October revealed that out of 2753 rape complaints
filed between April 2013-July 2014, only 1287 were found to be genuine.
Undoubtedly, the menace is
spreading and has extended to Government and corporate offices. Already, 526
cases of sexual harassment have been reported by women which are being
investigated, notwithstanding, some earlier cases that were far from genuine.
In one case, a recently recruited young officer was alleged to be harassing a married
woman. But a departmental inquiry found she as smitten by the youth and the
complaint was false.
However, many in corporate India
underscore there are no easy answers as the definition of sexual harassment is
ever expanding and often ambiguous. Lawyers also cite several cases of false
sexual persecution cases where women have been found to take the easy way out
to defame a male colleague.
Also, there is huge resentment over the fact that the law in allegations of
sexual harassment is biased heavily in favour of the women complainant.
In light of this misuse, Supreme
Court former judge KT Thomas pointed out, “Whenever you make a law very
stringent on account of pressures from emotionally surcharged social reactions,
there is a real danger of its misuse.”
Notably, false accusations, reverse harassment and blackmailing in the corporate
world or academia are also on the rise. Nonetheless, it is seldom that an
institute or university acts fast to uncover the truth as happened in a recent
case at IIM, Indore, where a nine-member Gender Sensitivity Committee (GSC)
headed by a retired justice of Madhya Pradesh Indrani Dutta found that the complainant,
a lady professor had falsely accused her senior colleague of sexual harassment.
Her contract was later terminated.
In a similar case at Monash University, Melbourne,
Australia earlier
this year, a Federal Court ordered a woman engineering professor to pay Aus$
900,000 for a failed sexual harassment case. She had made the complaint after
she was accused of poor performance.
Back home, recently four sexual harassment cases examined by the Central
Administrative Tribunal were found to be false and motivated. This compelled
CAT judges KB Suresh and PK Pradhan to question
certain provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013
which encouraged biased outcome against men rather than neutral fact finding.
Judges were critical of Section 4 and 7 of the Act terming these
unconstitutional as it encouraged premeditated bias against men!
Furthermore, National Crime Records Bureau data reveals a dramatic surge
in the number of cases being filed under crimes against women category. This
should be interpreted as willingness of women to take on violators and perpetrators
of crimes against them under the new gender empowerment laws.
But the extremely low conviction of 23 per cent cases and increasing
number of court observations regarding false and motivated matters being filed
against men would suggest that males are becoming victims of systemic abuse by
women!
Additionally, the prosecution is often unable to establish guilt of the
accused. Nonetheless, the fate of men, especially in high profile cases such as
of ex-Supreme Court judge Justice AK Ganguly or like a Delhi boy Sarvjeet Singh
accused of harassment by AAP activist Jasleen Kaur are sealed as soon as they
are proclaimed accused followed by social media ostracization!
The male version of incidents is either ignored by the media or given
fleeting treatment. Thereby, discovery of truth becomes a victim of sensationalism.
Consequently, each case imposes severe expenses on the victim and official
agencies.
Undeniably, Indian laws
have undergone a fundamental change to tackle the menace of crime against women
to ensure their safety, security and dignity. Unfortunately, these provisions for
an effective shield for women are being abused by some. Clearly, there has to
be a serious dialogue about protecting the falsely accused along-with serious
repercussions against anyone found to be filing false allegations. Time now for
a review of gender empowering laws. ---- INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)
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