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Whatever happens, happens
for good and Whatever will happen, will happen for good...…
Disclaimer: This page is entirely my perception of scheme of things, and there is no attempt to cloud anyone's judgment or manipulate perceptions in anyway. This page was thought off primarily as an automatic query-handler, which would leave me with some more peace of mind, not having to relive unpleasant memories and to move on to better times for good.
Please note that I am not pointing fingers towards women in general, since I know better to be saying such an absurdity and untruth. The misuse of Indian law for ego-gratification and vindication (IPC 498a to be specific) is putting a lot of families in limbo, pulling the women among others in the family into extreme distress and mental angst (so this page is actually not against women, rather its for creating awareness of a social menace which affects women too, which is thought of, by many legal experts themselves, as the worst factor causing irreparable family disintegration in this era. The contents of this page is only for information, no claims of Authenticity or copyright is made about the contents herewith. Much of the contents are written a long time back, so raw emotions may have manifested in their unmitigated form, which may be excused and factored for while reading.
To whomsoever concerned,
By,
P.R.Gokul, B.E, M.B.A, C.P.I.M
Trissur, Kerala
email: gokul_p_r@yahoo.com
,Tel: (+91 487)
2360304
Connect to
me through Orkut: http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Profile?rl=mp&uid=14753829204270299492
The need for this page:
Not to throw flak at my aggressors, but to clarify my situation and hence
actions to my well-wishers. Firstly I am in no good mood to explain what
happened to concerned souls and friends, who query anxiously wondering how all
this happened. Secondly since I gauged that many guys seemed to have problems
in seeing things in the true & correct perspective, because they never
could digest that a girl and her family would risk her own family life and
victimise her own husband and parents just for ego-gratification!!! and
monetary gains!!!(This indigestion would have been justified in any other
normal case and where normal people are involved- but alas we are dealing with
extreme and impossible human psyche here, truly amazing and towards the
negative end of the spectrum of Human Psyche).
I do understand what they mean when they say "Never explain- your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway"- but this page was thought of as an automatic query handler!, and for those in between people and victims of similar grade who must be frantically searching the net for some solace and reference, when hell freezes over them like it did with me(now a days I am being contacted by more and more of other Harassed Husbands who has read this page- it’s a great feeling for each of us to know that we are not the lone sufferers- that there do exist ilk of my in laws in this great vast world, and that to stand up for your rights and fight is the only way for each one of us- irrespective of whether our legal system sucks or not).
Legal advice and counseling is available here : Also check the form for asking queries, by which you get answered by volunteers of the SIF yahoo group mentioned in the links section: http://mynation.net/advice [ Please Advice Section]
Hmmm Monetary gains .... I hear from my fellow webbie victims that 498a
section of Indian penal code is fast becoming a new way for some people to make
money using their daughters- with all due respects to the rightful women
victims who must be using this section to safe guard themselves from cruelty
To know how prevalently fabricated the complaints in this section are(95%
false cases, says some reports): refer discussion list on "Harassed
Husbands" : http://indiafamily.net/talk/messages/12482/12276.html?1053781632
).
My Side of the Story: I am the victim, we are being harassed, you may need to know the oppressors to believe me(anyway I would make an attempt to let you know my side of the story).
I was married to Smt.X on July 2nd 2001 at Alleppey, Kerala. After marriage we returned to Mumbai where I worked and she too started working (for about only a month though). We had a baby girl, Leena Meenakshi, on June 24th 2002.
I was about to bring both of them back to Mumbai for the first time after delivery, when Smt.X's parents went to my house at Kerala(I was still in Mumbai then) and tried to terrorise and insult by mother in presence of my father. All this, just because I had written to her father that we all need to sit and thrash out why me and my parents are having to face uncouth and disrespectful behaviour from my wife and her parents time and again. I had always felt and believed that this was a result of some misunderstanding and fears on the part of both sides which kept on rubbing off in wrong ways making the level of doubts, fear and mistrust from bad to worse- but which would have just faded away with such a face to face meeting.... but alas it was not to be... since the arrogant nature of her parents made them think that its best and easiest that they pull off an act of oppression and snub me and my parents into submission(in the lines of US army's strategy of "Shock and Awe" for quick submission of the "enemy", which was successful in Iraq!) and make them tolerate whatever behaviour is dished out to them thenceforth(rather than just accepting that they were not behaving amicably, and amending this kind of unacceptable ways themselves, but they might have thought it is easier to snub us into submission- which I guess is a strategy which had worked out well for them with others and in many other situations in the past).
But this attempt of rallying us into submission, rightfully, received a jolt when we stood our grounds and made it clear in no uncertain words that such behaviour is not at all acceptable in our family, whereupon my wife stomped out of my house at my home town(I was still in Bombay then) as she had pre-planned - to emotionally blackmail and defeat us in the name of our beloved daughter
This daughter is the prime reason I wanted to fight for, lest she
gets to grow up with a mom whose mind is as screwed-up and in an unfortunate
environment in which her own father have to lead a life of shame and
submission- the same way Smt.X grew up seeing her father!!!. Ah… that’s
another story- the gist is… I didn’t not want the history to repeat by bringing
up another junior
But the counseling didn't happen because there was lack of interest from her side to get things change for the better(and in the process having to expose and admit to their earlier ploys of negativism). After this they decided to pull me and my parents into misery by lodging fake complaints as below.
The Case against us (me, my father (Dr.P.A.Rajan) & mother (Mrs Leena Rajan)): C.R.No..22/20003 at the 27 th Metropolitan Court of Mulund, Mumbai (under sections of IPC 498(a), 406, 34 and dowry prohibition law 3 & 4).
The complaint: Filed by Mr.X (my ex-wife's father), subsequent to the written private complaint by my wife, sent by post to the Commissioner of Police, Mumbai.
Date and Police Station: 19/03/2003, Kanjur Marg, Mumbai.
Indian penal code- The sections in brief: (for
detailed explanation of the sections .. click here)
Section 498 A : Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty(The FIR/complaint alleges that we threatened to set afire my wife with kerosene, if our demand of 25 lakhs was not met! - Refer Translation of FIR (originally in marathi) for details... click here)
Section 406: Criminal breach of trust
Section 34: Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention
Dowry Prohibition Law sections 3 & 4
Section 3. Penalty for giving or taking dowry
Section 4: Penalty for demanding dowry
Why they made this false complaint:
To put pressure on and make us yield to their demands and take upper hand in our lives. They sure did think that we would come crawling to their feet as soon as the arrests were on their way, alas they didn't know what resilience backed with righteousness could do to men. They would have never reckoned that we will fight for our values and rights and endure the pressures which were quite formidable and which would have brought any average family to submission- but we had to fight for truth, righteousness, justice and for our lives.
This aggression and misuse of Legal system (and its characteristic skew towards the statement/complaint of a girl- under 498a the accused can be arrested and is non-bailable) started when we had started resisting my wife's and her parent's insulting and uncouth behaviour not at all permissible by any standards of decency and culture.
For this seemingly inexplicable behaviour we are still to find/confirm
the root cause: our hypothesis
1) For taking upper-hand in our lives and hence start controlling our lives and finally our assets & finances (we suspect that this was their motive, right from the start of this marriage, in the retrospect)
2) Influence of our own blood relatives (with vested & devious interests, my sincere apologies to my relatives who are not involved but I have avoided being specific in the best of interests of all) poisoning their minds which provoked these behaviour out of their genuine fears. Even though we fail to understand why my wife and her family tried hard to believe that all the heartfelt concern and love we had showered on them were not for real. Anyway I find it really difficult to digest that people could believe other's words and go on to stare at 'love', point-blank, and term it "make-believe & fake"!.
3) A mix of 1) & 2) not going into the speculations of which followed which, just terming all this as plainly- Unfortunate.
What we had to go through since 19th of
March when the FIR was made:
19th Around 6.00 PM police came to my house just telling me that I need to go to the police station along with them. I didnt know for what they are taking me but went on to find Mr.X and maternal uncle of my ex-wife at the police station, but still I was clueless about the charges. The police asked about the gold ornaments my wife had brought along with her after marriage, I knew that these ornaments had been taken by her (from the bank locker) before she left for delivery in April (she herself had opened the bank locker then). I also obliged the police's request to search my house in Bhandup.
At around 7pm the police along with Mr.X and Ex's uncle came to my house and I co-operated with the search and gave away my wedding/engagement ring since that belonged to my ex-wife. Since the charges included 498a (cruelty/harassment against wife) which was non-bailable I was taken on remand and was taken into custody.
20th: I was produced in the 27th Metropolitan Magistrate Court, Mulund and a date of next day was given for hearing.
21st: I got bail on the ground that the Car which was allegedly not returned by me was actually seized by the finance company on my wife's request (a prima facie case of collusion and fabrication of charges). The news of my arrest was published in 3 Malayalam dailies and an English daily just for tarnishing our image in society (alas they didn't know that they were exposing their own foul selves in front of the media- since the people who knew who they were could easily judge who the real culprits were!). I was released on bail with a weekly attendance at the police station.
After the 2 days in custody I was shattered, not because I was a jailbird for life, but because my loved one did this to me... I still can't believe that she did it to me, I still like to think its not her fault.
Since my parents were also co-accused in the complaint, they applied for anticipatory
bail at High Court,
On 21st April my parents got bail from
After this, the aggressors disappointed by the fact that they couldn't put my parents behind bars at least for a day (so that they could flash this "happy" news in Trichur and Mumbai editions of News papers as earlier), initiated procedures to cancel our bail (which is a rare occurrence, and which is sought only in cases of extreme sensitive nature where the case or society at large is at risk because of the accused getting bail and moving freely in the open!). Their original intention too had taken a severe setback by now, to bully us into submission and get the reins of our lives for themselves- god definitely had other plans, I reckon.
The harassment is still continuing from their side and so is their attempts to manipulate of our legal system (I don't want to be specific, hope you understand). Justice delayed is ...... denied, the Charge-sheet was finally submitted during January 2005, and the Magistrate framed the charges during November 2005, but the Trials has not begun since the other party has applied for Re-investigation!. We can hope to get over this as fast as possible, but that’s what the ENEMY doesn’t want to happen and is trying their best to delay.
Why some unscrupulous wives misuse the law (IPC
498a)….
Firstly to harass the husband, and may be to for monetary gains. One may wonder as to where exactly is the harassment when only 2% is usually convicted in case 498a cases in total. The point here is that the Indian legal process itself is a punishment in itself, especially when it lingers on aimlessly for 5-10 years!, after the harsh period of police investigations ( institutionalised blackmail to be frank).
The Indian legal system is a harassment in itself to the general public, though we are trying to see courts as our 'parks' and litigation as 'small talk', so that we ourselves do not fall into the self-destructive vortex as the wasteful trials and adjournments and other self-defeating legal processes stretch out, without any sign of closure- while life is kept in abeyance (can't restart a family, can't relocate easily, can't be free from time waste, etc.)
How can a lot of wives use badly
498a law? When it’s a fact that misusing wives will lose cases anyway…
Since there is no legal repercussions if wife is found to be fabricating a
false 498a charge, wives use this almost by default even if they want a divorce
for some other reason(other than harassment, cruelty or because of the husband
demanding dowry). And even if they lose the case, there’s nothing for them to
actually lose, as she gets a lawyer from the state (public prosecutor), she
doesn't have to appear other than for her statements during trail (2-3
sessions, as opposed to the innumerable court sessions through which the
accused husband & family has to go through, over the 5 to 10 years when the
case is live). This no-lose situation is what makes the law-misusing wife
confident of inflicting damages to her husband, by misusing Indian legal
system, without any harm to her whatsoever.
Moreover in this particular criminal section of 498a, the accused is considered Guilty until proven innocent (the onus of proof is on the accused, since he is considered guilty right from the start), while in all other criminal cases, be it murder (in almost all the countries in the world) the accused is considered innocent until proven Guilty (so that the law can ensure even if hundreds of Guilty escapes/acquitted, no innocent should be punished/convicted.
A parting thought: Isn't it men who are been harassed more and more these days, isn't it men who do not have any laws protecting them from the misuse of laws made originally to protect women from "genuine" harassments!. I am not denying there is harassment towards women, but the recent trend in urban India is Harassed husbands by the hands of greedy and unscrupulous wives. Visit my blog on subjects relate to this, see the links to other bloggers of the ilk http://cruiserdeep.blogspot.com .
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