Biased Law

Can you believe that a phone call can cost you Rs. 20,000. Not an international call, but a domestic call for even a single minute can cost you Rs. 20,000. A Magistrate is empowered to pass a protection order in favour of a wife and prohibit the husband from attempting to communicate the wife including oral, written, electronic or telephonic contact under Section 18(d) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act. If such husband, against whom a protection order is issued, makes a phone call to his wife, he has committed an offence under Section 31 of this Act for which punishment could be not only Rs. 20,000 but also one year of imprisonment. Moreover, this offence is cognizable and non-bailable. Such husband making phone call to his wife can be arrested without warrant and would not get bail easily as the offence is non-bailable. Does this disproportionate punishment not offend our conscience? The worst part of the legal provision is to be found in Section 32(2) of the Act which provides that the sole testimony of the aggrieved person, in this example the wife, the court may conclude that the offence has been committed by the accused. This provision is against the principles of natural justice. Such husband even if has not made a phone call and wife says falsely that he has made a phone call to her, the court can convict the husband and punish him for no crime. The Section 32(2) is totally biased in favour of females and against males. Law is irrationally presuming here that females always speak true and males always lie! This is an example of sex-biased law.

One more example of extreme favourable attitude of law towards females can be found in clause (e) of Section 18 of this Act. While passing protection order Magistrate can prohibit a man from operating bank lockers or bank accounts held by both the parties, jointly by the aggrieved person and the respondent or singly by the respondent without the leave of the Magistrate. The protection order would be justified only if it prevented the man from operating joint bank lockers or joint bank accounts. But the protection order can go further and also prohibit operating bank locker or bank account held separately by the man without the permission of the Magistrate. Man is expected to ask permission from the Magistrate every time he wants to withdraw his own money from his separate individual bank account. What more humiliation of a man can be done than this!

Gone are the days when wives were driven out of home by the husband. This law enables Magistrate to drive the husband out from his own home, shared with that woman (who may be his wife, daughter, sister or mother) under Section 19(b) of the Act.