Sunday, October 3, 2010

How to stop misuse of Domestic Violence Act

The Domestic Violence Act was formed to stop the Domestic Violence against women but now it is being misused to such an extent that women suffering from its misuse have far outnumbered the women suffering from Domestic Violence. It is necessary to take steps to stop the misuse of this Act to prevent the family system of India from breaking down and at the same time ensure justice to genuinely abused women.
It is important to protect women from Domestic Violence. And hence for the same, a law was formulated through which a woman can not only seek protection but also financial support in terms of maintenance.
There used to be a time when a lot of women were dependent on their husbands and due to lack of self-dependency and being less educated, these women had no options but to endure the torture done on them, but today a lot of examples of qualified women misusing the law provisions and torturing their in-laws are coming to front. Many women misuse this law and put false allegations on husband’s mother-father and siblings. This destroys the lives of many a families. In fact, a lot of contemporary women are suffering due to misuse of a law meant for women. Even after doing all this torture, the complainant woman can get maintenance from the husband and by the time the family proves its innocence the complainant woman stands to gain a lot financially. In a nutshell, it can be said that even after levying false allegations and endangering the lives of so many people, the complainant woman stands to gain only something, not loose. Eyeing such benefits, greedy women are ever ready to file cases with false allegations. In order to take advantage of the law many a qualified women are leaving their jobs deliberately. This is not only a hindrance to their growth but also to the national economic growth.
The Govt. has formulated many policies for the girl child, due to the success of which today women are progressing in every sphere of life. In fact, urban woman has no need to depend on anyone today and she can well maintain herself. In such a situation, only socially and economically backward woman must get support from the law. In fact, seeing other examples of women performing will inspire many a woman to prosper in life. In order to stop the misuse of law, it is pertinent that only suffering women should get help. In order to curb misuse many more steps can be taken like:
1. Prima-facie a woman should not get any interim relief if there are no visible signs of torture.
2. If the complainant woman has alleged against all/many family members from her in-laws’ side then reasonable doubt can be cast on the genuineness of the complaint. Even if a single innocent man/woman has been wrongly implicated than that should be a fact enough to punish the complainant woman. She should not get any financial assistance because that will further encourage the bad behavior of the woman and it will set precedence to waste the precious time of courts and innocent people by such women.
3. If the complainant woman is educated, then she should be encouraged to be self-dependent. In fact, it is an indirect torture on such a woman to keep her dependent on someone else. Educated and qualified women should not be eligible for any financial assistance from their husbands.
It is very crucial to uproot the misuse of the Domestic Violence Act in order to safeguard our culture and ensure progress of our country and to severely punish the people who misuse the law. Only then will innocent families and genuinely abused women get justice and they will be protected from this growing torture.

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