These days many married women are misusing Dowry Act to harass their husbands and their in-laws. The civil matter of husband-wife relationship is being converted into a criminal matter and police being involved. The moment the matter of either husband or wife getting estranged goes out of house and anyone of the groom's side arrested or police involved, chances of reconciliation become zero. The misuse of Dowry Act has been so rampant that women are filing cases even when dowry is not involved just to seek revenge or overpower husband and his relatives. In fact, the Dowry Act has broken more families than it has built.

A law that was supposed to help women has in fact worked more against them as it is the mother or the sisters of the groom who languish in jails and face ignominy all their life. The lawyers have been become experts in creating evidence and have been advising brides to regularly send blank registered letters (inland letters/postcards) to their parents after marriage so that the text can be filled later and used as evidence in the court in case the marriage goes awry. The police has the most fun as they take bribes from both sides as they involve people who are not criminals.

I myself practicing law have been seeing this happening again and again helplessly here in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The trend is that most girls are ready to use the weapon of dowry than adjust to the new family, a virtue of Indian tradition. The strangest thing I have seen is that women accusing husbands and in-laws of harrassment and physically hurting them fight against divorce cases filed against them. If the husbands and in-laws are bad guys then why not keep away from them? The Income Tax return of the bride’s father should be checked to find whether that person actually spent money in that year. I know people accusing of having paid a dowry of Rs 10 lakhs in cases where the bride's father's assets does not even amount to Rs 2 lakhs in his Income Tax return. Why not prosecute these people for hiding evading Income Taxes first?

The country needs to take a new look at the Dowry Act. Cases where there is no evidence of physical torture, no medical report, the police should not arrest the accused merely based on first information report. The parents should not be harassed by police and unless there is a death, nobody should be arrested. The law should be amended to make giving dowry punishable as well. Because lot of times bride's parents label gifts given voluntarily at the time of marriage as dowry later. The media and the politicians have been callous about the situation.

Immediate action is needed to save Indian society from breaking families.

P.S.: Celebrities hit by false 498A cases – Kumar Sanu, Raghubir Yadav. Do you think these guys have any dearth of money to harass their wives for dowry?