Men victimised under DV Act observe 'Black Day'

New Delhi, Oct 26 (UNI) Husbands and parents-in law harassed by their wives and daughters-in-law in the guise of 'biased women laws' today highlighted their grievances by staging a novel protest at the Jantar Mantar here.

The protest was organised by Men Cell, supported by Save Family Foundation and My Nation to observe a 'Black Day' on what they called the first barsi of the draconian Domestic Violence (DV) Act.

The DV Act, which was enforced on this day in 2006, had according to these groups, proved to be a tool of legal extortion for men in cases of marital discord.

''This world-wide first barsi of the DV Act is being celebrated by the harassed husbands in India and abroad and their relatives, tortured, blackmailed and implicated in false DV and anti-dowry cases all over India and abroad by their unscrupulous wives and daughter-in-laws for ulterior motives,'' said R P Chugh, Supreme Court advocate and President of Men Cell.

Participating in the protest was another Supreme Court lawyer Mahesh Tiwari who said '' The DV Act is an extortion Act. Its sole aim is to harass the already harassed men. When we had Section 498 A IPC, under which a woman can file a case for cruelty, what was the need of this Act''.

''Man has been made sn animal with no law to his aid. We want this Act to be done away with or else amended after taking the opinion of the men organisations and lawyers to make it unbiased,'' he said, adding the National Commission for Women (NCW) has been unnjust in bringing this biased Act. There were protests before 2006 but these women groups are very powerful and with high reach.

''This Act is nothing more than a false occupation Act wherein a wife can occupy the house of the husband and throw him and his relatives out,'' said Sandeep Bhartia, the organiser of the protest.

The protestors, including victims of the Act, demanded that 498-A be made bailable and non-cognizable and it, along with DV Act, be made gender neutral and penal provisions for those misusing them.

Raising slogans against NCW and Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chaudhary, an engineer and one of the victim of the ''false'' 498 A case said, ''I and my wife have been living in judicial separation for one-and a half year now. But this Act has given her another provision to harass me.'' Mr Swarup Sarkar of the Save Family said ''DV Act is the blood cancer in Indian society. How can we give selfish and fraudulent wives the right to occupy the matrimonial home? She can ask for maintenance under other provisions but this DV Act allows forced occupation of the house,'' he iterated.

Unlike 498-A IPC for wives, the DV Act also protects sisters, mothers, mothers-in-law or any other female relative living with a violent man, who can be jailed for a year for beating, threatening and even shouting at them.

A glaring loophole in the Act is its Section 14(5) which says the respondents shall not be allowed to plead any counter justification for the alleged act of domestic violence, a clear violation of Human Rights.

UNI