Section 498A dilemma: India's bid for modern justice should not gloss over concerns for women's safety in marriages

The three new criminal laws are expected to turn a new leaf for criminal justice in the country. In 2023, there were nearly 22.8 lakh crimes reported against women, Of these, about 7 lakh, or 30 per cent, were reported under Section 498A of the IPC, according to the data recorded by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation in its report, “Women and Men in India 2022.” The National Crime Record Bureau in its latest “Crimes in India” report also highlighted a surge of around 4% in crime against women from 3,71,503 cases in 2020 to 4,45,256 cases in 2022. The complex issues of Section 498A A sensitive legal provision like Section 498A was introduced vide Criminal Law Act, 1983 as there was an increasing number of dowry deaths and incidents of cruelty by husbands and their relatives, consequently resulting in suicide and death cases. Notably, Parliament overlooked the suggestion made by the Supreme Court in Preeti Gupta v. State of Jharkhand, where the Court requested to consider the informed public opinion and the pragmatic realities into consideration and take necessary changes, as it was observed that most of the complaints under Section 498A IPC are not even bona fide and are filed with oblique motive and in the heat of the moment over trivial issues without proper deliberations. In Kahkashan Kausar v. State of Bihar, the SC held that the husband’s relatives cannot be forced to undergo trial in the absence of specific allegations of dowry demand and also observed that “a criminal trial leading to an eventual acquittal also inflicts severe scars upon the accused, and such an exercise must therefore be discouraged.” In this case, it was observed that the plain reading of the FIR and the chargesheet papers indicate that the allegations levelled by a complainant are sometimes vague and sweeping, specifying no instances of criminal conduct.