The Supreme Court indicated in a judgment that a straitjacket and literal interpretation of a penal provision on dowry death may have blunted the battle against the \u201clong-standing social evil\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dowry deaths accounted for 40% to 50% homicides in the country for almost a decade from 1999 to 2018. In 2019 alone, 7,115 cases of dowry death were registered under Section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, Courts have often opted for a strict and narrow reading of the Section 304-B, which was one of the many legal initiatives introduced against dowry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a recent judgement, The Supreme Court said that courts should instead interpret Section 304-B liberally while keeping in mind the law\u2019s intention to punish dowry and bride-burning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Section 304-B, to make out a case of dowry death, a woman should have died of burns or other bodily injuries or \u201cotherwise than under normal circumstances\u201d within seven years of her marriage. She should have suffered cruelty or harassment from her husband or in-laws \u201csoon before her death\u201d in connection with demand for dowry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years, courts had interpreted the phrase ‘soon before’ in Section 304-B as ‘immediately before’. This interpretation would make it necessary for a woman to have been harassed moments before she died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such \u201cabsurd\u201d interpretations should be avoided, the apex court noted. Instead, the prosecution needed to show only a \u201cproximate and live link\u201d between the harassment and her death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court further said the phrase \u201cotherwise than under normal circumstances\u201d in the Section also calls for a liberal interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judgment also raised concern about the casual way in which trial courts examined accused persons in dowry death cases under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court indicated in a judgment that a straitjacket and literal interpretation of a penal provision on dowry death may have blunted the battle against the \u201clong-standing social evil\u201d. Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2021 Dowry deaths accounted for 40% to 50% homicides in the country for almost a decade from 1999 to 2018. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":404,"featured_media":43742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1407],"tags":[1134],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-43741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-may-2021","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43743,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43741\/revisions\/43743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43741"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offerexpiration?post=43741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}