Aggarwala - 7 THINGS MEN SHOULD KNOW BEFORE GETTING MARRIED

STORIES OF FALSE CASES AND LEGAL BATTLES IN INDIA

Amish Aggarwala

Advocate

Supreme Court of India

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Women were subjugated by Indian society for centuries. Progressive thinkers stepped in, and with their influence the Government introduced changes to alleviate this suffering. These changes were indeed necessary.

Brides were burnt, beaten, raped, confined, and taunted.

The Government therefore, brought in a sea of changes:

1. Dowry harassment was introduced as an offence in 1983 under the Indian Penal Code. The Dowry Prohibition Act was also passed in 1961.
2. Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code was passed in 1973 and mandated maintenance to wives and children.
3. Inheritance laws favouring women were introduced by the Hindu Succession Act of 1956, and further strengthened by the 2005 Amendment.
4. The Domestic Violence Act was passed in 2005, providing for compensation, protection from eviction by the husband, etc.
5. The Hindu Marriage Act provided for alimony to be granted to a spouse, usually the wife, at the time of grant of divorce.

All the above steps were necessary, keeping in mind the length and breadth of this large nation and its vast social problems.

However, there is a potential for abuse of any power, and these laws which were made to help women have turned the tide so hard, that innocent men have now become the subject of subjugation which is quite akin to what women themselves used to face earlier.

The intent of this book is to inform men who are about to get married, who got recently married, or who are going through a separation, to understand what they need to be careful about.

This is not a comprehensive book. There are several other laws, judgments, and jurisprudence on this subject.

However, I have assembled in this book my thoughts and experiences on the subject, for the common Indian man who should not venture into matrimony without being prepared for the possible untoward consequences.

Hopefully, you will not become a victim of false cases. And if you do, we will help you find solutions in this book. Good luck.

Regards

Amish Aggarwala

Advocate

Mob: 9953401701

A lot of men come to me saying that their wife has filed a complaint against them. But there is no proof of any of her stories, they say. I have to begrudgingly explain to them that no proof or evidence is required for the police to lock up the husband in the name of investigation.

Indias criminal justice system envisages proof beyond reasonable doubt to convict a person, like many countries around the world.

However, at the time investigation starts, the opposite is true.

Mere allegations by the wife, of cruelty for dowry, and criminal breach of trust (for withholding her jewellery), is enough for the police to show up at your door and arrest you.

The biggest challenge with allegations by the wife, is that the full truth is only known to the four walls which surround the couple.

There is no eye witness, no medical reports, no proof of anything.

In any other offence, the Court would finish off the case without much deliberation. But courts, understanding the special nature of allegations by the wife, allow these cases to continue until the parties compromise the case, or there is an acquittal or conviction after a prolonged trial.

A few years ago, false cases and their repercussions were out of control. The moment a complaint was filed, the police would show up at your doorstep and arrest you. You would then spend a month or more in jail while various courts would dismiss your bail applications, and only come out when either the High Court or the Supreme Court would take mercy at your situation.

It had become a lucrative business for wives, their lawyers, and the police, to haul up innocent men on false charges. It would be years before any proof of allegations will be demanded, and till then the husband would have spent months in jail, and his family would have settled the matter with the wife for a large sum of money. The police of course, while facilitating this deal, would get a good cut of the bounty as well.

One such victim, Mr. Arnesh Kumar, faced similar subjugation.

He approached all courts all the way up to the Supreme Court of India, which upon detailed study of the situation, observed that a large number of false cases were being filed in the country. To rectify the situation, the Court in Arnesh Kumar versus State of Bihar, passed a slew of directions in 2014. The prime among them was that in cases with punishment of up to 7 years of imprisonment (which included most matrimonial offences), the police should not arrest the accused unless necessary. The court also directed that the police must also record reasons for such arrest.

For a little while, arrests in divorce cases halted. However, when the police thoroughly analysed the judgment, they realised that instead of just showing up and arresting the husband, they needed to now just record reasons to effect arrest.

Then, a jewellery is still with the husband which needs to be recovered became the go-to reason for the police to go and arrest the husband.

On top of that, lawyers representing the wife across the country also developed a new weapon. Apart from the usual gamut of dowry harassment and criminal breach of trust allegations, the lawyers threw in allegations of unnatural sex (anal or oral intercourse). As explained earlier, no medical proof or corroboration is required at the time of investigation to arrest the husband.

The situation as it now stands is that we are back to square one. Husbands are arrested on bald flimsy allegations, and suffer huge damage to their reputation, their money and their peace of mind.

A lot of them consequently lose their jobs, their businesses, their homes, and their life savings.

And the worst part is that the wife is not to blame here.

In any relationship, and marriages being no exception, there are bound to be little spats.

Earlier, spats were encouraged by family members to be amicably resolved. With joint families dictating terms to the couple, the matter would usually resolve. I personally think in this situation the wife was always the loser. She would bow down to patriarchal values and accommodate to her husbands wishes.

However, now, especially with lesser intervention by family members, and more nuclear families, along with mass migration to urban areas; the wife, upon a spat, is encouraged to explore her options by talking to a lawyer.

When she talks to a lawyer, she is told that if she wants an equal balance of power in the marriage, she must show her husband that she also has remedies.

The way to do that is to file a case against the husband. That when the husband faces the police, he will be more amenable to equality in the relationship.

This, of course, is a farce. The lawyer knows well that the moment this process is initiated, things will snowball into a situation where there is no going back.

The police threaten and coerce husbands to concede to the demands of the wife, the list of which, of course is not drafted by the wife, but her lawyer.

The husband in turn, feels that he cannot submit to unreasonably huge demands, and therefore he refuses.

Ultimately, if the husband is smart, he runs to a lawyer, and gets anticipatory bail on time. If he is not, he is arrested by the police, and then spends months in jail until his relatives find a lawyer and secure his bail.

As a matter of procedure, the police station refers the complaint by a wife to the Crimes Against Women (CAW) Cell of the District.