The anatomy of feminism has furnished a task to ensure the womanhood a safe and breathtaking environment which they could avail in highly patriarchal and male chauvinist societal structure like India. The constitutional envisagement which has very carefully imbibed under Article 15(3), a special protection to woman and children and definitely this envisagement has enlightened the very cause of creating a legal and social framework to tackle the growing prejudices which women are bound to suffer in orthodox societal structure which always promotes male chauvinist tendencies. The aforementioned theme comprises of multifaceted dimensions. It has already become a segment of hot debate, subsequently resulted in the battle of sexes. Dilemma regarding attaining lucidity on this issue has hyped .Chauvinism in this context has added a momentum to this. Innumerable contentions have came into light and refute views regarding these contention had made it an inevitable and infinite unending phenomena. Negotiations have become absconding in nature. The Constitution which itself provides for equality under Article 14 , With the evolving society people are becoming aware of their rights and this rhythm suppression or abatement of anyone of the two is reckoning impractical.

As the topic demands a lucid approach I would like to imbibe both aspects of the gender biased laws, which were legislated with a view to protect the harassment of women in society. Initially I will deal with the positive aspect of these laws and subsequently with material and relevant facts; we will observe the other side of the coin. All of the subject matter is free from any type of prejudice. As being a law student, Reasoning comes first.

The status of women in India is somewhat different from been paid towards woman's problems not only in our countries but also throughout the world and the equality status of women with men has become very important and burning issue on the social and political level. The Indian women are an object of admiration by people of both in and outside the country, public life and as well as for certain qualities that they sum to possess in greater aggregate than women in other parts of the world. The phenomenon of violence against women which has been haunting millions of women for centuries has transformed into a serious worldwide issue cutting across the barriers of religion, wealth, society. Everyday thousands of women in our country are being physically, psychologically and sexually abused by their male counterparts. These acts of violence did exist in several forms including sexual assault, rapes, intimate partner violence etc. In fact, this kind of violence did exist in the earlier societies too but in those times, the family provided adequate social, physical, economical and emotional security to the spouses as compared to the contemporary society. Surprisingly, even the women of the present day society who belongs to middle or elite class and are highly educated and even financially independent are more prone to domestic violence and this phenomena is being witnessed by daily news reports. Now before progressing further we will understand What is domestic violence ? Domestic violence may tentatively be defined as all acts of gender based physical, psychological and sexual abuse by a family member against women in the family ranging from simple assaults to aggravated physical battering, threats intimidations, verbal abuse, violence, psychological tortures etc. Some of the prominent factors which are found to be contributing towards domestic violence in India may primarily be related to Indian patriarchal society characterized by male supremacy and dominance over women, traditional sex role socialization, family structure versus interpersonal expectations and high ideals, age disparity, educational background, poverty and unemployment, suppression of true facts, addiction to drugs or intoxicants, impotency and bareness of spouses, conflict over money matters, performing household chores and rearing of children, difference in intellectual standards, frustration in life, loss of self esteem etc. Domestic violence in India is viewed to be one of the most extreme expressions of female oppression. In a highly sophisticated social structure women lack courage to bring the matter publicly and fight it out fearing criticism and stigma attached to it by the male dominated society. Perhaps in our male dominated patriarchal society, the phenomena of violence will continue without any hitch so long as the social, cultural, religious and economic factors conspire to keep one of the sexes(usually the females) subservient to the dominance of other usually the males). More and more incidences of domestic violence, specially the matrimonial violence are alarmingly on the increase at the hands of husband or his relative. This is reflective of the sexist organization of both society and the family system within it. Further the socialization pattern in our society ensures the continuing dominance of male values over the female one's. Consequently the unfortunate women of our country have been found to be the victims of male chauvinism exploitations and different kinds of atrocities. The result of these gender biased violence are devastating leading to life long emotional stress, mental tensions and poor reproductive health. According to Sociologist Prafulla Mohanty "A male dominating society was born and is continuing even today. Men started exploiting women, mishandled them and used them for increasing their earnings in the way they wanted, sold them, marketed and advertised them like a commodity. Thus, the status of women deteriorated day-by-day. Male child is taken as an asset of the family whereas the girl child is a considered liability".

If we make a historical analysis on the condition of the females in India we will observe that at different epochs, there were considerable developments in attaining positive objectives. As according to a book title "Women and society in India" by Neera Desai, Women of Indian subcontinent had contributed a lot in various fields i.e. from the time in the early history to the pre-independence struggle and from there to the contemporary modern era, women had been proved to be an epitome. The part played by them in Non-cooperation movement and other events of freedom struggle can't be neglected, there noticeable participation and support helped to attain fruitful objectives. In spite of all these contributions women have always been treated as a subservient servant under the male dominion. They have been facing threats like sati, the ill-treatment of widows, the ban on widow remarriage, polygamy, child remarriage, denial of property rights and education of women. For now it has become a quest for emancipation of women in the present societies and to protect them from the evils of discriminations. Prof. Srinivas's observations in this respect are worth noting. He says: "While at the bottom level of the rural hierarchy women do intra-mural work, latter being paid for while the former is not, immurement of women characterizes the top level".

Does this mean that there has been no change during the last thirty years? The achievement of independence in 1947 generated a feeling of optimism and buoyancy among the people. Under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru it was decided to take path of directed social change based on three axes, viz. the creation of a democratic secular constitution, planned development based on a mixed economy and state support to social welfare activities. Some of them were ‘the constitution guaranteeing formal equality', ‘economic policy' and ‘social welfare state'. These major policy measures have affected women's position significantly. The constitutional recognition of equal status of women and progressive legal enactments has undoubtedly empowered Indian women with juridical equality. Inducting

Of women in some of the decision making bodies creates hope of action on the part of the rulers. One of the striking achievements during the last forty years has been the acceptance of the need and spread of women's education. Many urban girls are getting opportunities of entering the portals of higher education. There have been more opportunities for middle class and upper class women to go in for remunerative work.

On the other hand, the colonial heritage of poverty, unemployment, deprivation, of basic needs such as adequate nutrition , heath service, sanitation have not been eradicated; nay some of them have been accentuated. Not only the women's employment in the organized sector been reduced, but expansion of the informal sector has put women in the category of a reserved army. Patriarchal values and normative structure established some two thousand years ago still persist though in a different garb. Motherhood and the ideal of a faithful loyal, self-sacrificing wife are projected through the media and the education system. The reality of the subordinate position of women is indicated through adverse sex ratio of girls, the growing domestic violence, increasing number of dowry deaths and rape cases. For instance the following vital data surveyed by National crime record bureau (NCRB), 2004 before commencement of this very act, A total of 1,54,000 incidents of crime against women were reported in the country as of compare to 1,40,601 during 2003 recording 9.8 % increase during 2004.



As per the statement of WHO director "Violence against women is present in most of the societies but it often goes unrecognized and accepted as part of the order of things". In different parts of the world, 16% to 52% of women suffer physical violence from their male partners. Around 2/3rd of the married women in India are the victims of domestic violence according to U.N Report. On very hopeful development which has occurred during the last ten years is the emergence of women's movement whereas women have started raising their voice against inequality, patriarchal values and the biased social structure. It had become the need of the hour to have a piece of legislation that can provide a sort of relief to the women, which could prove benevolent to them. In this regard the law makers have provided for certain laws which ensures the protection of women, one notable being the Domestic Violence Act has been the law of concern. This law is basically dealing with all the ill practices which are prevailing in the society. This set of law has given special rights to the women by which they can emancipate themselves. The act is in the nature of civil law which is intended to protect the women from being the victims of all sorts of domestic violence in society. It basically represents a landmark in the achievement of gender equality for Indian women in two fundamental ways. Firstly it rejects that the Indian family is safe heaven for all the members and secondly the law differentiates domestic violence from the confinements of dowry deaths.

I will now proceed to list down some laws meant specifically for women:-

1.    Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC): This section is formulated for married women who face physical and mental harassment from husband and in-laws and the cruelty is made for any unreasonable ‘demand' (mostly dowry) from the woman and the cruelty is of such nature that it drives the woman to commit suicide or can be a danger to the life and limb of the woman.

2.    Section 354 of the IPC: Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty.

3.    Section 509 of the IPC: Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman.

4.    Section 375 and 376 of the IPC: Rape of a woman.

5.    Section 498 of the IPC: Enticing or taking away or detaining with criminal intent a married woman

6.    Section 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC): Power to compel restoration of abducted females.

7.    Section 125 of the CrPC: Meant to provide no-fault maintenance to wife from husband.

8.    Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (HMA): Though gender neutral, is largely used by women to extract maintenance from their husbands in pendency of a divorce.

9.    Section 25 of the HMA: Meant to provide alimony to women from divorce.

10.  Section 18 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act: Another provision for maintenance to wives.

11.  Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961: Though gender neutral in its definition, this Act is largely used to protect women and there are also some judgments for cases filed under this Act, which are gender biased towards women.

12.  Immortal Trafficking Prevention Act: Deals with trafficking of women.

13.  Indecent Representation of Women Act: Title is self-explanatory.

14.  Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act: Empowers women to abort slither unborn children legally.

15.  Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act: Meant to tackle Domestic Violence faced by women.

These are some of the laws and Acts made to protect and empower women true to the best of my knowledge. One more deal to give women a relief is making the marriage registration compulsory. A recent judgment from a bench of the apex court Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice Kapadia, contended that the Hindu marriage act 1955 in which earlier the registration was not mandatory has been now done mandatory under section 8. This will help to prevent child marriage and succession. In spite of the legislation of D V act, "Rape, suicide, dowrydeaths, cruelty against women, mockery of human rights etc". All these phrases have become a part of common day to day activity and prominent segment of news line. It clearly reflects that "Mere enactment is not necessary; the thing which matters is that there should be enforcement in the ground level.

But this is only one face of the coin, the motive with which the laws was legislated was frustrated i.e. the objective of the statute is distorted.

As according to Aristotle "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely", this means that misuse of this very act initiated a trend of squandering which resulted in harassment of opposite counterpart. There started a quest that who will now dominate, it is by this act that women got the untamable power which they used for their illegitimate purposes also.

Facts support the contention that women have now started to misuse the law for wrongful purposes. According to Center of Social Research, most i.e. 85-90% of the cases filed under the ambit of IPC sec. 498(A) are false. At this point if time, it will be worthwhile to think how affected the condition of women? Despite documented evidence that section 498a of IPC has been heavily misused affecting more and more women (along with men) everyday, no amendments to this law have been proposed so far. As with section 498a of IPC, the Domestic Violence Act is replete with loopholes and is bound to be misused. The DV Act will allow legally wedded women, divorced women and girlfriends (former or present) to subject a man and his relatives (male and female) to domestic violence and legal harassment.  This Act, like Section 498a of IPC will result in the harassment of many more innocent women than it claims it will protect. It is important for the Government to acknowledge the fact that IPC 498a and DV Act are bad laws that criminalize ordinary citizens (male and female) and violate their fundamental rights. Unless urgent amendments are made to prevent the misuse of these laws, credibility of women will be lost. In addition to lost credibility, an overload of false cases will worsen the delays in the judicial process and deny timely justice to women who are genuinely aggrieved.

Unreasonable and easily misused laws like IPC 498a and DV Act are already creating a situation of fear and mutual distrust and adversely affecting interpersonal relationships between men and women in the society. This is resulting in more and more broken families and depriving children of a healthy childhood. If the Government and women's organizations were truly interested in improving the living conditions of women in India they would focus on empowering women through education. Education builds self-confidence and gives a person the ability to stand up for oneself. Educating women can also ensure that the next generations of children are raised to treat each other with respect and be better citizens. The Government and women's organizations can also lend support for rehabilitation of abused women and protect them from further harassment without doing injustice to innocent men. It would behoove the Government and women's organizations to work in collaboration with social scientists and psychologists to understand human behavior in the context of changing social conditions and standards in India and think about workable solutions to deal with Domestic Violence and other forms of abuse instead of criminalizing ordinary citizens. Positive measures that can bring about domestic harmony are the only way to ensure family stability and long-term social stability. The numbers of cases that are filed in police stations or courts are the basis for the official statistics of dowry harassment. So, given that the law allows women unlimited scope to fabricate lies (with no penalty of perjury) and given that women are encouraged to keep filing false cases the statistics of "dowry harassment" are bound to rise while the problem of genuine harassment is left unchecked. So, the government has, in the name of protection of women, done grave injustice to women. They constitutes the genuine victims of dowry harassment whose misery remains unmitigated but is constantly alluded to in order to justify the law.

The recently passed Domestic Violence Bill claims that it will protect women from Domestic Violence which includes physical, verbal, emotional, sexual and economical abuse. According to the law an aggrieved person is defined as "any woman who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent…" and a respondent is defined as "an adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person…" Thus, the law only recognizes domestic violence committed by a man on a woman in a household shared in the past or present. While this law is heavily biased against men, many supporters of the law are claiming that this law is good for women. The following are some gross inconsistencies in the law that proves that the DV Act is not good for women either. There are several instances where a daughter-in-law and/or her blood relatives commit Domestic Violence (as defined by the law) against her mother-in-law, sister-in-law or any other females related by marriage. In addition, mothers or step-mothers abuse their children (who include daughters or step-daughters) physically, verbally, emotionally and economically and vice versa. In such a situation, the law does not provide any protection to female victims of Domestic Violence. Thus, the law can only be used by a wife or a girlfriend (present or former) and their relatives/friends against a man and his family.

According to Clause 17 of the Act legally divorced women and former separated girlfriends/live-in partners can claim right to residence in the home of their former husband or former partner even though the Act says they may not have any right, title or beneficial interest in the same. The law can thus force a former wife or former girlfriend on a man's household and violate the rights of his present wife or partner. The law does not provide protection to a man's current wife or girlfriend/live-in partner or even dependent mothers and sisters under such circumstances. Here, the law favors divorced women and former girlfriends at the cost of the rights of a legally wedded wife/live-in partner and other female relatives that share a household with a man.

According to Clause 19 a man can be removed from his own household and he and his relatives can be restrained from entering any portion of the household in which the aggrieved person resides. Through this clause the law supports the encroachment of property by a girlfriend (former or present) at the expense of the right to residence of a man, his legally wedded wife and any other dependent female members of a family. In the name of protecting a section of women who may be making true or false allegations, the law penalizes innocent women who are related to an accused man. The fact is that many women who are actually beaten up and harassed by their husbands and in-laws rarely file 498a or resort to other dowry related laws. A lot of them live in rural areas, unaware of the law or lack the necessary economic and moral support from their natal families. Going by the conviction rate the proportion of women who have genuine cases is 2%. Most women who file 498a are from urban backgrounds and are either capable of fending for themselves or have enough family support to fall back on. The proportion of women who belong to this category is 98%. In the 98% of false cases, in every instance that one daughter-in-law files a false complaint at least two women (an innocent mother-in-law and sister-in-law) are arrested and undergo stress, humiliation and harassment in the hands of the exploitative police, lawyers, staff and officials in Indian courts before being acquitted several years later. So, in every 100 cases 2 women genuinely benefit, 98 women get away with perjury and extortion, and at least 196 women suffer needlessly.

Therefore I will conclude my thesis mentioning the fact that gender biased laws which proves to be the act of discontentment among the sexes should be subjected to certain provisions which can make laws like Domestic violence act to be fruitful for both and to attain the objectives for which it was legislated. The law makers should take lessons from cases like that of Amit buddharaju and Rinku in which the wife used to threat the husband while talking to her boy friend in front of him, that if he will take any action against her, she will sue her by filing a false harassment case against him. After this all reached a saturation level the victim husband committed a suicide. There should be certain provisions in the act so that there should be phenomena of check and balance. The disgruntlement should be tackled by the legislators and they should assure both the sexes that both rights and remedies are present in this law. They should try to satisfy them so that they might get out of the thinking that D V act is like a full fledged AK-47 in the hands of women and we males are at the shooting range waiting for a shot. Thereby the law commission should propose certain amendment to the act so that the gender battle which has resulted terrific hypes may be tamed. To add more the government should take initiative to make women aware of their rights so that the purpose for which the law was legislated can be fruitful and the women can cherish the beneficiaries provided by the law for a lengthy stretch.

*****************************************

SOURCES

INTERNET:-

CSR Study Rep 2005 on Misuse of 498a [ http://mynation.net/voice/csr-2005/ ]

Other than this WCD / NCW Planned new tactics to Break family and harass men to grab their Property by suggesting Domestic Violence Act 2005but that also bounced back, Judiciary itself termed as "clumsily drafted" here is related news

http://supari.org/prove-home-violence-for-relief-court/ – Prove home violence for relief: court.

http://uchalla.wordpress.com

http://merinews.com/alert.jsp

http://mynation.in/alert

http://legalservicesindia.com/

http://indianexpress.com

BOOKS:-

PSA Pillai- Criminal law

Neera Desai- Women and Society in India, pg. 34-44

M.N Srinivas- Caste in modern India and other essays, Pg. 3

Romila Thapar- looking back in history, pg. 6

Sudhir Kakkar- The Inner world, pg. 67

**********************************************