My dear Mr. Venkatesh S., This has got the reference of your reply above of 18th Feb. at 7.23 A.M. I really appreciate the way you answered and the way you are looking at the things. Most unfortunate, some people, only with bitter personal experience try to generalize the entire women class as vamps and while they are spewing venom, they forget that the splashes are falling on the faces of their own mothers and sisters.
The faulty argument in respect of Section 498-A is that only 2 to 3% conviction rate is there and hence, all the cases are false. These people have such a myopic outlook. I want to ask them that how many Section 302, 308, 420, 461 and 478 I.P.C. cases are turned to convictions? What about TADA conviction (only about 6 to 7%). Now, can these people argue that there are no murders, no attempt to murders, no rapes, no cheating, no forgery as there are a few or no convictions.
Now, violence against women is concerned, the most heinous crime is rape under Section 376. The conviction rate is mere 20%. Whether the champions of men say that no rape was held and the alleged rape victim was trying to harass the accused "to extort money". Let me briefly explain why rape accused are not being convicted. Most of the rape accused are near relatives of the victims (some times even brothers or father). Hence a rape victim is forced to become a hostile witness in the court proceedings by persuasion of her own blood relation and she is a material witness and hence case will go in favour of accused. The prosecution will not protect the rape victim and enjoy the scene, when rape victim is gruelled by the defence advocate in the open court in humiliating circumstances. Even, in the police station, at the time of lodging the FIR, the rape victim and her mother face so humiliating and hostile atmosphere. In addition to this, faulty investigating method adopted by the I.O. , i.e., not collecting the dress material wore by the victim and accused at the time of incident, not collecting the material objects at the site, which prove s*xual act, not taking the victim in proper time as a result of which v**ginal squabs are not being taken properly, costly DNA tests and prosecution's non-insistence for taking DNA tests etc.,tampering the evidence and accosting the prosecution witnesses as in most of the cases they are relatives and offering the parents of s*x victim with money etc. These are only illustrations but not exhaustive explanations. As these many handicaps are there, the rape accused go scot free.
Another most inhuman thing is killing the gir child in womb. Everyone accepts that this is happening on the basis of population statistics, but not even a single prosecution was held against such perpetrators. Can the champions of "so called men's race" give any explanation.
If there is abuse of Sectin 498-A, bring them into light but not brand every case under Sectin 498-A is a false one and do not shout that Indian is unknown of "harassing the women", "giving and taking dowry" and "dowry deaths".