Are Indian wives really weaponising domestic violence and maintenance laws?
Laws meant for women's protection are not misused but underused since pursuing maintenance and reporting cruelty is difficult for most Indian women.
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Are criminal law provisions relating to the payment of maintenance by husbands to their wives and cruelty by a husband against his wife being weaponised against men? The suicide of 34-year-old Atul Subhash on Monday led to this discourse gaining traction on on news debates and social media.
In a 24-page suicide note and 81-minute video, Subhash alleged harassment by his wife through the filing of false cases against him for cruelty as well as monthly maintenance.
However, lawyers and academics that Scroll spoke with provided an alternative view to the popular narrative of the laws being weaponised. It is often difficult for women to pursue maintenance in courts and file complaints of cruelty by the husband with the police, they say.
Pointing to the high rate of domestic violence faced by and suicide among married women, they said that rather than misuse, these laws are actually not being used enough by women.
Rationale for such laws
Article 15(3) of the Constitution of India enables the state to make special legal provisions for women and children. This affirms the social reality of discrimination faced by women in Indian society, according to Delhi-based criminal lawyer and writer Abhinav Sekhri. “The provisions relating to maintenance and cruelty discriminate in...
