Desire to Amend Section 498-A of IPC: A Critical Study within the Ambit of 243rd Law Commissions Report

Marriage is a union between two persons and is culturally recognised, establishing rights and obligations between them. Thus, in this social organization the spouse is supposed to deal with and keep up his better half as an obligation which cannot be disregarded. But even in this social institution there exists social evils, one is the dowry system. Number of cases are evident that the wife is made subject to cruelty, whether mental or physical, in case the demand is not fulfilled by her or her relatives. She is ill-treated, harassed, etc. Around more than a half of the Indian women are a victim of domestic violence and dowry related death and cruelty. With the intent to safeguard women, enactments like the Dowry Prohibition Act, the Domestic Violence Act, etc., have been enacted. For the same reason, section 498-A was inserted in the IPC in 1983. It deals with cruelty, whether mental or physical, with a married woman by her husband and/or his family. But as time passed, the concept of cruelty took a new colour. Some of the women have been found to be indulging in registering false and fabricated complaints against their husbands and his family. Various instances have proved that the provision has been and is being misused by evil hands for their own ulterior motives, one being for alimony. Possibly, the main reason behind such practice could be the loopholes in the said provision, i.e., section 498-A of IPC. The laws that have been framed for the protection of women are so much in favour of women that many times ignore the effect of it on innocent men. The purpose of this research paper is to critically study section 498-A of IPC. The paper aims at highlighting the requirements so as to develop a multidimensional approach and focus on the abuse of the provision under section 498-A of IPC. With this, the author has tried to put some of her own suggestions and recommendations to counter the said evil.