Renuka defends wide ambit of law to prevent domestic violence

New Delhi, Nov 11 (UNI) Minister of State for Women and Child welfare Renuka Chowdhury has defended the provision for the divorced wives/ former girlfriends being given the right of residence in their former husbands/partner's house and said that the Domestic Violence Act will ''set a direction for a certain societally accepted behaviour.'' In an interview to a private TV channel, Ms Chowdhury also dismissed the criticism of the concept of verbal abuse and adressed concerns about the loose definitions and wide ambit of the Act.

Admitting that a "minute percentage of people" might misuse the Act as apprehended by a section of people, the minister, said, that when they bring an act, they help to set a direction for a ''certain societally accepted behaviour.'' ''Those are the broader parameters. Because of a minute percentage of people who misappropriate an act are you saying I should not bring an act? I should be in denial that women are not domestically harassed, that they are not killed, removed from their homes, denied access to their children, to their own earnings and that they have no recourse to law?'' she said.

Asserting that any law is better than no law at all, she said the law reflected the need for a society to be given direction. The government has put in broad parameters and would see in which direction the law goes.

About the broad ambit of the concept of domestic violence contained in the Act, which embraces verbal and emotional abuse and economic abuse, Ms Chowdhury implicitly accepted that this could be seen as ferocious or too wide but justified it on the grounds of the dangerous situations in which women live.

''Women live in dangerously self-embracing situations. Even if you see it as a ferocity in the Act or (claim) the ambit is too wide please understand that women are burnt to death, beaten to insensitivity.'' Regarding the concept of verbal abuse, which under the Act includes insults and ridicule and has even been criticised by former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee, she said this concept ''can cause problems, subjectivity and hyper-sensitivity can run riot''.

Asked whether it was silly to convert sarcasm into an offence, she quipped, ''What you deem as silly is really not something I've created today. Under the IPC speaking in a vein that is denigrating to the status of women, which removes her from her dignity, is very much an act (offence) under the IPC. So I don't see what you are getting heat up about today. I don't think anything that happens today in the sense of domestic violence can be termed as silly. It's over-trivialising and over-simplifying this act. Please understand, despite all the checks, women are burnt. One in six women is raped, murdered, beaten to death, sent into mental asylums. I don't think that is funny.'' More UNI AJ VD RK1705