This Dowry-Demanding Husband Was Granted Anticipatory Bail Because Going To Jail Would End The Marriage, According To The Court. So The Wife Is Unimportant?
I think that everyone comes to crossroads and it’s in moments like these that you must choose what is more dear to you. In choosing one over the other, you must take into account everything. From its worth to its relevance to even its significance, you’ve to be careful before you make a choice. And by that we don’t mean the smaller things, like picking fries over onion rings, but the bigger choices in life – truth over lies, justice over corruption, equality over gender bias, all of which test one’s conscience.
Except, seldom does it ever happen that people end up making the right choice or doing the correct thing, because more often than not, the saying “justice always triumphs” is just that – a saying and nothing more. We say this after yet another time witnessing the justice system failing a woman when the time came to safeguard her interest. And not over her husband, but her problem was considered a lesser issue over her marriage. At this point, we could do away with women’s agency entirely.
The Madhya Pradesh Court granted an anticipatory bail to a man facing charges of cruelty and dowry demands by his wife, sensitively observing that if the husband goes to jail, the marriage would surely come to an end. Safe to say, we have lost the last remaining hope we had in the justice system, because this sounds downright silly. You see, the woman in question, who had filed this case against her husband, had alleged that her husband abused her, demanded a gold chain of 5 tola and was asking that a plot of land, which is in the name of her father, be transferred to him.
If husband goes to jail, marriage will surely end HC grants bail to man.
Bench found that the allegations are “very trivial” and “can happen in any matrimonial home”.
15 years since Hon’ble SC called misuse of #498A as #LegalTerrorism.#Scrap498A https://t.co/88hKKQbup7— SIF Chandigarh (@sifchandigarh) August 25, 2020
Also Read : 22-Year-Old Pregnant Woman Shot Dead By Her In Laws For Dowry. This Is Sickening
And it didn’t just stop there. She also admitted to having been locked in a room, forced to have sex with him, including unnatural sex, and was even refused medical aid when she asked for it. All because he wasn’t given dowry, which in the first place is illegal to demand. Having gone to the police, the woman filed an FIR against her husband from Dindori district with Shahpura police station on June 19, 2020. The man since then has been arrested under sections 294 (Obscene acts and songs), 498-A (Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and 34 (act done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act.
However, the man accused of demanding dowry and being violent with his wife, later claimed that the FIR against him was lodged in spite, in retaliation of the complaint he lodged with a local police station in the district on June 8, 2020, against his in-laws who were not allowing his wife to return to him after taking her away. And while the police was still investigating the matters, the principal bench at Jabalpur intervened to make matters worse, by granting the man an anticipatory bail, just so they could save the marriage.
Anticipatory bail can be granted to husband u/s Sections 498-A, 376 and 377, IPC ? – New Post has been published on https://t.co/AZfDWkD5oE Anticipatory bail can be granted to husband u/s Sections 498-A, 376 and 377, IPC ? IN THE… https://t.co/anF02NZmmk
— MyNation Foundation (@MyNation_net) August 24, 2020
While granting the bail, the court observed, “Looking at the facts and circumstances of the case, I find that the allegations are trivial and can happen in any marital home. Marriages would always experience some friction or the other. There are no signs of injuries on the body of the complainant…This court is also of the opinion that if the applicant goes to jail, the marriage would almost surely come to an end as thereafter there would be hardly any chances of compromise. However, as the allegations reveal that they are trivial in nature, a window of compromise or settlement is always kept open.”
And what gets our goat is, is how convenient was it for the court to prioritise saving a broken marriage as such over the person in that marriage who probably doesn’t want to be in it any longer – the wife. Suddenly, to hell with the woman, or the fact that she might be at risk since her abusive and greedy husband is out on bail, the marriage must be saved. What even?
No wonder, our entire system crumbles down to every little flaw, for it so deeply lacks the compassion to go through with any case or any judgement, with equal interest to both the parties. And till the time we let men like these exploit the loopholes in our justice system, there is going to be no future that would look bright for the womankind.
