For long, the female sex has suffered at the hands of men; the exploitation ranges from physical to intangible abuse like mental and psychological torture. Women have always been treated as a child-bearing machine. Domestic violence is one of the gravest and the most pervasive Human Rights violation.
For too long now, women have accepted it as their destiny or have just acquiesced in their right to raise their voice, perhaps because of the justice system or the lack of it, or because they are vulnerable, scared of being ostracized by their own dear ones because domestic violence still remains a taboo for most women who suffer from it or for other reasons best known to them. But now with changing times the scenario has totally changed with more and more women gearing up to take care of their own destinies.
Our Constitution urges for equality & dignity of all human beings. Article 15 of the Constitution of India states that State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds of Religion, Race, Caste, Sex, Place of Birth or any of them or subject them to any disability, liability or restriction on that account. But even the Constitutional norms are violated without the slightest bit of hesitation.
The list of crimes that are committed against women seems enormous, varying from simple harassment, physical or mental torture, to even denying the very right to exist. Article 15(3) gives power to the legislature to make special laws for women. Exercising this power, the legislature enacted this Act which deals with domestic violence. The new Act contains five chapters and 37 sections.
The Act is significant because for the first time the term “Domestic Violence” has been widened in meaning and scope from the culture-specific restriction of “dowry deaths” and penal provisions to positive civil rights of protection and injunction. The most crucial test, however, lies in implementing the Act.
The passing of the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) is an important marker in the history of the women’s movement in India, which has confronted the problem of domestic violence for well over two decades. This enactment sets free the movement from the malice that has long plagued it, of attributing all categories of violence suffered by women within their families to “dowry” and widening the scope of the term “domestic violence”. It acknowledges that domestic violence is a widely prevalent and universal problem of power relationships, more than the culture-specific phenomenon called “dowry death”. More importantly, it marks a departure from the penal provisions, which hinged on stringent punishments, to positive civil rights of protection and injunction.
Under this Act, domestic violence assumes a broader meaning ranging from “verbal abuse to taunts for not bearing a male child or bringing dowry, not being allowed to work or study to marital rape”. The Act, it is hoped, would empower women to report acts of violence suffered at the hands of family members.
According to the United Nations Development Programme, nearly 70 per cent married women in the age group of 15 to 49 years in India face “rape, beating and verbal abuse”. Under the new Act, the men booked under the law would face a minimum one-year jail term or a fine of Rs. 20,000. However, he could be booked under different sections of the Criminal Procedure Code for different acts of violence. The law focuses on married women or those who are in a live-in relationship but also gives similar protection to sisters, mothers and even daughters within a family.
Learning from the experience of other social legislations like the Dowry Prohibition Act, the Act specifies that a full-time “protection officer” would book cases. In earlier legislations, District-level Government authorities were given extra charge as enforcement officers, leading to delayed disposal of cases.
To make the law user-friendly, the Rules notified recently have it that the complainant would be asked to fill in a formatted complaint in front of the protection officer. Even relatives, friends and NGOs can file complaints on behalf of the aggrieved women.
Another highlight of the new law is the appointment of “Counsellors” to help the litigating parties. The women have the option of lodging an FIR and not pursuing it after counselling. There are also options like compulsory medical attention, right to stay in the home where she faced abuse, protection, temporary shelter etc.
The legal reforms did not take into account the vulnerability of a girl not only in her marital home but also in her natal family. The Act allows Magistrates to impose monetary relief and monthly payments of maintenance. The respondent can also be made to meet the expenses incurred and losses suffered by the aggrieved person and any child of the aggrieved person as a result of domestic violence and can also cover loss of earnings, medical expenses, loss or damage to property and can also cover the maintenance of the victim and her children (Ch. IV, S.20). S.22 allows the Magistrate to make the respondent pay compensation and damages for injuries including mental torture and emotional distress caused by acts of domestic violence.
The Act also ensures speedy justice as the Court has to start proceedings and have the first hearing within 3 days of the complaint being filed in Court and every case must be disposed of within a period of sixty days of the first hearing (Ch. IV, S.12(4) and (5)). It makes provisions for the State to provide for Protection Officers and the whole machinery by which to implement the Act.
One weakness of the previous NDA Bill has been effectively removed in the present Act and that is that the Magistrate has the powers to permit the aggrieved woman to stay in her place of abode and cannot be evicted by the husband in retaliation. This fear of being driven out of the house effectively silenced many women and made them silent sufferers. However, the Court by this new Act can now order that she not only resides in the same house but that a part of the house can even be allotted to her for her personal use (Ch. IV, S.17) even if she has no legal claim or share in the property.
Misuse of the Act, like all such Acts in India, cannot be ruled out. In fact, with a system as corrupt as ours, money, clout and muscle power will always call the shots and as long as the woman stays a puppet or pawn in the hands of her male relatives, she will always be manipulated and used.
However, with this Act, there is at last legal recognition of the scale of domestic violence that actually exists. This Act should also put an end to many of the misuses of the Anti Dowry Act. But when one sees the dismal record of implementation of Acts related to giving relief to the oppressed, one cannot but be skeptical.
But there is no doubt that with this Act a whole Pandora’s Box of litigation will be thrown open and all the degradation, brutality and cruelty to women that has been carefully swept under the carpet for centuries in our “old, rich heritage and civilisation” is all going to be exposed — and about time! For those feminist groups that see the family or the male as the main cause for women’s oppression, this Act will open up all sorts of possibilities in their struggles.