In `public interest', UP govt withdraws dowry harassment case

In `public interest', UP govt withdraws dowry harassment case
M.V.R. RAO

MEERUT, AUGUST 20: For the Uttar Pradesh government, filing a case alleging harassment for dowry goes against the `public interest' and deserves to be withdrawn. The BJP government has invoked its special powers to withdraw a case where a woman was allegedly harassed for dowry and thrown out when she was 6 months pregnant, her two-year-old daughter in tow.

This is the first time in the country that a state government has moved to withdraw a dowry case filed by the police, claims Veerendra Kumar, the advocate who's representing the litigant, Roopali Rastogi. The UP government order dated July 17 states: ``The government after adequate consideration has decided to withdraw the case in public interest.. The Hon'ble Governor has given permission to the prosecution to move an application in the judicial court to withdraw the case''. By August 2, the public prosecutor had moved an application in court seeking permission to withdraw the case, ostensibly to ``maintain peace and harmony amongst the parties''.

Even as the court was in the process of framing charges against the accused, the Meerut Chief Judicial Magistrate, R.C. Chaudhry gave his go-ahead. According to Veerendra Kumar, the court had the discretion to refuse the government permission to withdraw the case and permit the proceedings to continue. Lawyers are wondering what is the government's interest in invoking its special powers in an individual case, specially when it's a dowry case.

Vitul Kumar, SP of Bishnoi district, confirmed that such a case had been filed, but said he couldn't remember the exact details of the case. The governor was unavailable for comment.

Roopali got married in January 1992. She alleges that her in-laws kept harassing her for dowry, but her husband supported her. The harassment increased in November 1992, when her husband's sister Meenakshi lost her husband and came to stay with them. Roopali and her husband moved out, but after two years, returned to the in-laws house. The harrasment picked up where it left off, says Roopali.

In June 1996, Roopali's husband died in a road accident. Within eight days of her husband's death, alleges Roopali, her in-laws forced her to sign on blank papers on the pretext of filing an accident claim case. On June 29, they filed a case in court for settlement of property, with the aim of transferring the property to her late husband's brother Mukesh and his parents, she alleges. ``When my father objected, this angered them. On July 15, they threw me out of the house.'' Then, Roopali was six months pregnant.

In October 1997, Roopali registered a case alleging harassment for dowry at the Mahila police station in Meerut. In November, the police filed a chargesheet in the magistrate's court under Sec 498-A IPC (cruelty by in-laws for dowry) along with sec 323 (causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 3/4 Dowry Act against Roopali's father-in-law Mangal Sain, mother-in-law Nirmala Rastogi, brother-in-law Mukesh, his wife Archana and sister-in-law Meenakshi.

The magistrate's court sentenced the accused to three years and fine under Sec 498-A, imprisonment for one year under sec-323, two years imprisonment under Sec 504 and three years imprisonment under Sec 406 IPC with fine or both in most cases. Roopali's sister Shivali, a lecturer in a women's degree college here, alleged that her sister's in-laws then moved to get the case quashed, using their contacts with a prominent Moradabad-based BJP leader.

Roopali, who has done her MA and B.Ed, is now trying to piece together her life. Her second child, born after her husband's death in September 1996, died within a week due to illness. She has now started taking private tuitions to support herself and her 6-year-old daughter, Sohani.