By Seema Sindhu
The suicide by Atul Subhash has raised blunt questions on the laws once made to protect women in marriage.
He was only 34 and was driven to suicide allegedly due to the harassment on account of nine matrimonial cases filed by his wife against him. According to reports, he attended 120 hearings in Jaunpur from Bangaluru in last two years. He could have lost his job.
The incident has yet again sparked the debate on misuse of matrimonial laws like Domestic Violence, Cruelty, Dowry Prohibition, Maintenance and Child Custody.
Atul’s is not a stand alone case. There are many men who are living on edge due to false matrimonial cases. Some lose their jobs too consequently. It’s because of such cases that genuine cases of cruelty against wife lose its sting.
In May 2024, the Supreme Court expressed its concern that despite the gross misuse of cruelty – section 498A IPC – the govt has reproduced the section verbatim in section 85 & 86 in Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita without providing any safeguard to the husband.
It is not denied that these cases are filed without any cause. The point being made here is that the reason is not dowry harassment and nor cruelty or violence in such cases. It may be something else – ego clashes, vendetta, relationship outside marriage, incompatibility etc.
Many times these cases are filed by the wife as a preemptive step to divorce by the husband with an aim to pressurize him to agree to unreasonable alimony and maintenance or to delay divorce proceedings or to “teach him a lesson”.
In India, until it is divorce by mutual consent, it’s almost impossible to get divorce – if it’s the husband who is seeking it.
There’s presumption in courts that it’s the husbands who are delinquents. That’s wrong. Times have changed.
In villages and small towns, boys are not even getting girls to marry owing to unemployment and aspirational mismatchs. There are instances where girls have rejected matchs because they earn more than the boys.
The govt needs to understand that when these laws were made, the situation was very different than now. Then women were not equally educated and employed as are now. They needed the protection these laws give. Now these laws have to be made gender neutral and the BJP govt just missed the opportunity in bringing BNS.
The govt and courts need to be reminded that laws ought to be organic and need to be in accordance with times. It is understandable if a not-so-educated women from a poor or rural background comes to court with a dowry harassment case, but is it not the duty of a court to question an educated and employed woman coming to court alleging exchange of dowry at the time of marriage that why did she not raise her voice then? If educated independent women don’t who will? Laws and govt can’t change everything by themselves. Citizens owe some duty too.
Further, it’s unfair to impose child maintenance solely on the husband where the wife is also working. Shouldn’t it be borne equally by the both parents?
The government and the judiciary need to loosen their tight control on marriage if they want to save the Institution of Marriage.
Going forward, divorce rates will increase. It is inevitable as the times have changed and so have the aspirations. We need to understand divorce may be painful but a toxic marriage is oppressive. It helps none. Misuse of these laws is just one part of the problem.
The larger problem is state’s tight control on divorce. Divorce provision needs to be relaxed and made speedier. We must empathise with people with alternate experiences in life. By nature man is a reasonable race and none likes to rock the boat without compelling reasons, barring a tiny cases of wanton people.
Moreover we need to get out of this psyche of “when are you settling down”? Marriage is companionship, it’s not settling down. The women should seek settling down in career, and companionship in marriage.
(The writer is a Delhi-based lawyer.)
