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(Guest)

Swastika admits her dowry harassment allegations were FALSE

Swastika admits her dowry harassment allegations were FALSE

 

Swastika admits her dowry harassment allegations were FALSE

 

Kolkata, Sept 23 (IBNS): Tollywood actress Swastika Mukherjee has confessed in a media conference that the dowry harassment allegations she made against her estranged husband were false, apparently bringing a closure to an episode that has been playing out amidst full media glare for ten years.

 


“I was young, I did not have enough sense back then and I did what my family, friends and peers advised me to do,” is how Swastika on Wednesday chose to explain why she falsely accused her husband singer Promit Sen of “subjecting her to cruelty” and “criminal breach of trust”.


 

Swastika’s shocking but predictable confession comes a day after she apparently submitted an affidavit at a city court admitting that the charges she made against her husband and her in-laws under Indian Penal Code 498A and 406 were “unfounded, false, baseless and speculative”.
 

 

Swastika and Promit, the youngest son of renowned Rabindrasangeet exponent Sagar Sen, were married in June 1998, when the actress was just 18.


 

“Things started to go wrong around two years later when like a bolt from the blue my brother, our family and even me, who all lived in different places, were charged by her for dowry related crimes,” said Pritam Sen, Promit’s elder brother, who also attended the press conference.


 

“We went through hell for the past ten years. So many arrest warrants, all the expenses and the defamation aside, my brother is never going to get back the last ten years. He’s totally mentally devastated,” he added. Though divorce was reportedly filed by Swastika in 2001, the cases are still under legal red tape.


 

Pritam said recently Swastika had issued a press release which after being published in the media made it seem as if the two parties had reached a compromise and were heading for divorce which was definitely not the case.
 

 

Hence Wednesday’s press conference was called by the actress “to come clean”.
“I am deeply sorry for all that Promit and his family has had to go through. I hope he can move on,” said Swastika.
 

 

“As far as the custody of our daughter Anwesha is concerned, lets see what plays out. She’s a ten-year-old girl and she too has a say in this,” she said.

 

When asked what drove her to suddenly make such an effort, she replied that it was not out of any pressure but just a “realisation”.


 

Sources, however, say this might be just a coup to get the divorce the 30-year-old actress, who is known for her ‘who cares’ attitude and has not exactly had the smoothest relationships over past few years, has been after for quite some time.


 

Pritam, however, said he and his family were pleased at Swastika’s confession.
He said, “I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt. Let’s see what this leads to. But we’ll not accept anything but a genuine apology.”


 

The Sen family is apparently not mulling pressing charges on the actress since they are “not vindictive people”, said Pritam.


 

The confession, apart from sending gossip mills in overdrive, also sheds light on the Indian Penal Code which leaves the door for such a heavy-handed charge wide open for misuse.
 

 

Source: https://www.forestlaneshul.com/swastika-mukherjee-admits-her-dowry-harassment-allegations-were-false-9650.html

 

 

Now, I welcome the comments (hot and sour also) from all the members of the forum.

 

Cheers!

Coool



Learning

 21 Replies

Tajobsindia (Senior Partner )     02 October 2010

Prabhakar

I am surprised to read down your above reply and it is D - Day to see you making such takes in LCI that also on Gandhi Jayanti Day !.


This is said in ref. to your previous article on S. 498a IPC which at that time created the largest stir in LCI Family Law Forum for which 6 parts article was reproduced describing the specimens of noble Profession and whose ref. still stands at link onwards...

https://www.lawyersclubindia.com/forum/Some-Specimens-of-the-Nobel-and-Learned-Profession-Part-I-23819.asp .


Somehow I personally don't believe that the above reply is from you. However, I welcome such reply for the time being coming from you and leave the matter as it is for continuing family law forum harmony.


With regards to you.  

3 Like

Kiran Kumar (Lawyer)     02 October 2010

quite a sorry state of affairs.

 

we have got worst possible legislators who would draft cases whimsically without thinking about the implications.

 

laws must change with the change in society and such kind of false complainant must be punished heavily and those who supported the false case shall also be punished.

2 Like

Jamai Of Law (propra)     02 October 2010

I disagree with Mr Prabhakar ji

 

She is a weaker s*x in the society. She did it as she was overwhelmed. She was wrongly advised. 

 

'The fear of law isn't there' is clear from the fact that 'negligible % of convictiona in 498a' as people may be taking advantages of loopholes.

 

Out of distress she must have done it. She shud be looked upon leniently.

 

From the press conference, it says 'its a realisation after 10 years (that's ok) and that her allegations were speculative'

She never said she knew right from the day of filing those cases that she was making false allegations.


Tajobsindia (Senior Partner )     02 October 2010

Prabhakar


         =  

1 Like

(Guest)

@ above

 

why dont u remove this picture now,since u did not win the i-pod or t-shirt despite you trying your best to influence LCI?

 

even your "followers" & non-followers gave u virtual t-shirts,and towels,as they cud not see u sad and unhappy...

kya abhi tak umeed hai ki kisi din LCI ke man me karuna jagegi and wo in bechare tauji of india ko kuch de hee denge?

 

rather u & your followers shud learn a lesson..that "match fixing" before the announcement of the winner will only expose u all..

 

god bless u!!


(Guest)

prabhakar

thanks for being on the side of truth and justice

CommonMann (Software Professional)     02 October 2010

498a is a game in hands of women. Women knows that this law will not harm her anyways bcoz since this is a state level case. So use it against husband and his relatives anytime to harass and enjoy. Now its high time like there is an announcement of ayodhya verdict, like wise this 498a like law need changes.

(Guest)

u are wrong mr hora, if 498a is totally false, wife can be sentenced. at most she can harass u but in a false case cannot convict u. if u have any such prob there was a thread on lci a month or two bal wat action can be taken against such a wife. if u can prove shes doing it misachiveously just take her to a ride.

truth , justice and rule of law must prevail

1 Like

CommonMann (Software Professional)     02 October 2010

Mrs Dabangg Lady...FYI...suppose a women filed a 498a case against her husband...whether its false or true...husband has to come to court on every date....for no reason...but wife has to come only once for her statement in front of court....in whole of this scenario husband loses his mental peace and crucial time for his career development and for other activities...wife only enjoys...if husband is convicted or not..but wife cannot be punished for this....until husband files any other harassment suits against her in the court....I think this will clear u what i am saying....there should be some sort of change in which both have to coem on each date and wife will be punished if husband is not convicted..in the same case...

ROHAN (Adm)     05 October 2013

@Jamai Of Law, women are not the weaker s*x. Its all a myth. Moreover, can you compensate the distress the husband's family has gone through? Just because a woman has misused the law, you want society to deal with her with kid gloves. But if a man had done that, you would ask for severe punishment. Double standards and s*xism!!!

ROHAN (Adm)     05 October 2013

Its not true. Since the onus of proving lies on the accused men, its very difficult to prove innocence. And in case innocence is proven, its even more difficult to file perjury cases because the judges are quite unwilling to address them. Even if they address them, the punishment is trivial. Women in India have got more than they could ever dream about. India was always a female dominated society. It has now become all the more female dominated. Its time for the men to organise and fight - if need be physically with the women!!!!

ROHAN (Adm)     05 October 2013

The fact that 98% of the cases are false under section 498A of the IPC clearly means that there are that many false cases. The law itself is unconstitutional and against the principles of natural justice as the accused is held guilty until proven innocent which is completely nonsensical. Despite that extreme bias, if the accused have proven themselves innocent means that they are definately innocent. So, the bias lies in the minds of people like you who believe that women are the 'weaker s*x' and leniency should be shown. 

ROHAN (Adm)     05 October 2013

Why men suffer?

More often than not this question has perturbed my mind and ever since I got involved in men's rights activism, fighting for men's rights, creating awareness about men's issues and problems and interacted with abused and victimized men, my understanding of the answer to the above question has improved tremendously and today I am going to write about the same in this article.

Before we delve into the reasons as to why men suffer, it is pertinent to talk about "How Men Suffer?"

It is important to understand how men suffer because the current social understanding about suffering of men is largely undercover. In fact, even after 8 years since the establishment of the men's rights movement in India and after umpteen presences in the media, by and large, the society is still oblivious to the problems that are faced by men. Even, if sometimes people are aware that the man is suffering, they have nothing to offer to the man. And this is again a reflection of poor understanding of the male psyche and male emotions.

Some of the common forms of abuse of men are,

1.    Forced to earn manhood: Boys are taught to be ruthless and cruel to other men, view them as competitors but have a soft corner for women. Even our social constructs are so designed that a man must earn his manhood while a woman gets her womanhood by default because of her gender. That's the reason we see dialogues like "Respect me because I am a woman", "You are not a man if.......", "You are not a man unless you......", "Be a man", "Take it like a man" etc.

2.    Conditioned to be inferior: Boys are socially conditioned to believe that in general the male gender is inferior to women and that a man's life is incomplete without a woman. They are conditioned to believe that it is OK to demean their own gender; in fact they are made to feel proud about that.

3.    Made to suppress: Boys are encouraged to suppress their emotions/pains/sufferings and as they grow up, the language that takes shape in their minds is - "It is unmanly for me to complain".

4.    Economic abuse: This is the most common form of abuse that men are subjected to. It's been a social tradition to expect men to earn money through hard-work and then others should enjoy it. In fact, men who spend their own hard money for themselves are ridiculed and those who spend it for their family are hailed even though the family is abusive towards the man. Every new anti-male law that is proposed is based on the premise that it is the right of the woman on the man's money.

5.    Emotional abuse: Men face a lot of emotional abuse which often goes unnoticed because of the high expectations from the society and the emotional suppression that they face since childhood.

6.    Abuse in Marriages: Marriages are tumultuous for men. Every year close to double the number of men commit suicides due to abusive and married men top the list of suicides.

7.    Legal Abuse: The legal system is highly anti-male. There are more than 15 anti-male, inhuman and unconstitutional gender biased laws which openly flout principles of natural justice and many more are coming in pipeline. Also, the legal system is immune and insensitive to the abuse of a man who is victimized and has nothing more than lip service to offer to them.

8.    Social Abuse: Men face social bias. All a man needs to invoke hatred against him is to have a woman complain against him and it does not matter how much bizarre, absurd or illogical the allegations are; social hatred against men (misandry) will ensure that the life of the man is ruined. And such deep is the misandry that even if the man comes out clean; there is no will in the society to punish the liar woman so as to deter other women from repeating the same offense. In fact, abuse of men by society is like a social service.

9.    Workplace Bias: Men face bias at workplace as well. Mostly men find it very difficult to get promoted and need to struggle a lot for the same. Most companies hire more women under initiatives like "Diversity" and mostly even if men are as competent as women, they lose out on the job due to such initiatives.

10.  Cultural Bias: Abuse of men is not a new fashion; it's a chronic social disease. Men have always been forced to play violent roles by cultures and societies by participating in wars, taking risks, losing their life and limbs and donning the role of a protector. And this very role of protector goes against men which takes away the right from them to fight for their own selves.

This is just a tip of the iceberg about the various problems which men have been suffering from and are either unaddressed or unrecognized. However, let us now see as to why men suffer so much?

Men suffer because of the following reasons:

1.    They don't share their problems: Men feel it is unmanly for them to share their problems and fearing social backlash and ridicule, they suffer silently.

2.    They share their successes more often than their failures: Men are made to feel unmanly when they share their failures with dialogues such as "Dude, you could have handled this much". Due to this reason and the first one, the problems of the male world rarely surface. All that surfaces is their successes all over which makes the society feel as if it is OK to snatch from men. But, as it is said, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", same is with the problems and struggles faced by a man. Merely because men are silent, does not mean they are good to go. It's just that they are resilient enough to deal with the abuse heaped upon them.

3.    The Protector Role of men: Even if they are being attacked from all sides they won't forego their "protector" role. Even after getting abused by the very society, men find in themselves a fetish to protect culture, protect society, protect country and such high and lofty objectives do not allow them to take up cudgels against the injustice they themselves are being subjected to.

4.    Logic of Men: Men are extremely logical and analytical in their approach and thus often they fail to comprehend emotional turbulences and end up getting bruised emotionally. Men have great respect for systems, hierarchies, rules and laws. That is the reason, they somehow think that anti-male laws are fine and they would never be trapped if they don't do anything wrong and even if that happens, they would use logic to prove their innocence.

5.    Internal Misandry: This is the biggest reason why men suffer. Internally men hate each other and have a lot of disrespect for each other. They judge each other a lot and are too quick and active in jumping into action to punish a man against whom a woman complains. That is the reason, even after being victimized, most men do not challenge anti-male social attitudes and anti-male laws because internally they somehow feel, these laws are justified, it's just that, for them, the anti-male laws should not be "misused".

The solution to end the suffering of men is very simple. It just depends on certain choices that men need to make.

1.    Men must stop disrespecting and hating other men.

2.    Men must challenge all such social constructs which force them to earn manhood or suffer abuse because it is considered unmanly to raise voice against it.

3.    Men must not view other men as competitors in order to get s*x.

4.    Men must challenge all forms of anti-male attitudes, laws and media content.

5.    Men must understand the importance of "men's rights".

Men's suffering will end if they make the above choices and choice to make these choices also belies with them.

ROHAN (Adm)     05 October 2013

The Marriage laws amendment bill is further evidence of the growing misandry (male hatred) in the society and how the society treats men as disposable entities. Even in this modern age when we talk of Gender Equality, the stereotypical patriarchal notion that the financial responsibility of a family should lay on a husband still prevails in the society, and this pervert social mindset is the root cause of abuse of men, especially husbands in a marriage.

In such a situation, where men are already burdened with so much of load, another law which makes divorce extremely costly for them is thoroughly unwelcome.

Highlights of the law:

  1. This law recognizes “Irretrievable Breakdown of Marriage” as a ground for divorce.
  2. While the law empowers the wife to oppose the divorce at any point of time if the husband has filed for divorce, it restrains the husband from doing so when the wife has filed for the same.
  3. This law also contains a clause by which courts will be empowered to snatch away half the property of husband and give it away to wife.
  4. This law only talks about women’s rights and has no considerations whatsoever for men.

Brief Background:

Due to demand from various quarters, this ground for divorce was introduced by the Govt. of India by way of the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 which sought to amend the Hindu Marriage Act and the Special Marriage Act. However, the bill contained clauses that facilitated financial extortion of men.

The bill read that courts would have power not to grant the divorce unless the wife was paid adequate amount of money under the cute name of “Financial Security of Woman”.

And the bill also mentioned about special powers being given only to wives to oppose the divorce if the wife was unhappy with the money she received from the husband.

Such clauses being outright anti-male and gender-biased in nature were vehemently opposed by various men’s rights activists and organizations, who even deposed in front of the Standing Committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice. The panel, chaired by Shri Santaram Naik, was presented with the objections raised by men’s rights organizations who sought to make the bill gender-neutral and ensure that no man faced any kind of financial hardship because of gender-biased clauses in the bill.

Oppositions ignored:

However, the objections raised by men’s rights organizations have been conveniently ignored by the standing committee panel, that has gone ahead and recommended the very clauses to the Govt. of India for the bill to be tabled, to which the men’s rights organizations has raised objections against.

What will happen if?

  1. Husband purchases a property just 6 months after marriage out of his hard-earned savings earned before marriage and his marriage breaks and he loses half of the property. In that case the husband will be doomed.
  2. Men start fearing this law and stop buying real estate which adversely affects the economy of the country.
  3. Husband has dependent parents and owns a single property and if 50% of that goes to wife post-divorce, how will the husband take care of his old parents? Is the concept of family restricted to only husband-wife in the Indian context?
  4. What, if the family is a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) owning a single joint property? Will the wife get 50% of that? What about other sibling’s share in it?

Confidare's objections:

  1. Marriages are tumultuous for men. This fact reflects in the suicide statistics that are published year-over-year by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and it’s the married men who top the list of suicide. Suicide rate of husbands’ increases 4 times the rate of wives’ and 6 times the rate they are bornEvery 9 minutes a married man commits suicide. This fact clearly proves how bad marriages turn out for men and if divorces are also made costlier by way of such laws, this will lead to further increase in suicides by men. Is the Government of India trying to facilitate the suicides of men?
  2. There is one more law in the pipeline – Matrimonial Property (Rights of Women upon Marriage Act), 2012 – which talks about making wife the co-owner of husband’s properties right at the time of marriage; then, why this law? Why is the Government hell bent on making redundant anti-male laws and convert marriage into an extortion industry thriving on men?
  3. In a democratic law making process, objections raised by a particular group or individual cannot be ignored without any proper justification. The panel has failed to give any just and proper reason as to why the objections raised should not be considered.
  4. As per Dowry Prohibition Act, any demand of cash/kind in relation to marriage is “Dowry”. Is not this law legalizing dowry to be paid to wife from husband under the cute name of “Financial Security of Wife”?
  5. Right to Equality is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution of India and cannot be disrespected under any circumstances. Current bill thoroughly violates it, as far as men are concerned.
  6. Feminists are claiming that nearly 80% of women do not have a place to live post-divorce. This is completely false because no such study has ever been conducted. India does not have any standard data collected as to how many divorces are happening, of those how many own a house and how many do not, how many are nuclear, joint and HUF families. Without any such data in place, any claims made are just airy claims without any data. Formulating a law on airy data is dangerous.

Confidare's demands:

  1. Marriages and Divorces should not be made a property-transfer-bureau.
  2. If property division is to be done then wife’s share in her ancestral property must also be considered and then division must be done.
  3. Duration of marriage must be a crucial factor of consideration. The difference between a 2 month marriage and a 20 year marriage must be clearly understood.
  4. Property division must take into account contributions made by both the spouses and also the fact that the property was acquired from wealth earned post marriage and not from previous savings.
  5. Any and all outstanding financial liabilities on the property like loan for property, loan against property, mortgage etc. must also be equally divided and wife must be made to be equally paid for it. If she is not working then she should get her share from her ancestral property.
  6. Both the partners should have equal and unbridled right to oppose divorce and there should be no gender-bias in this.
  7. There should not be any power wrested with the courts to decide upon property transfer or stalling of proceedings as the Indian judiciary is highly incompetent and has not shown positive trends favoring men when it comes to disposing cases. The Indian judiciary is highly anti-male and does not consider twice before ordering a man to either “sell his kidney” or “beg, borrow or steal” just to pay maintenance to his estranged wife. What is the guarantee that the same judiciary will make judicious decisions when it comes to this law?
  8. Institute a National Commission for Men, that can systematically collect issues, concerns and problems of men, study them and recommend to the Govt. about measures to be taken to address those problems.

If the Govt. of India does not take these considerations seriously then we have only one message for the hardworking Indian men, who think putting self before others, is a social norm –

Your hard earned property does not belong to you.


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