India is getting more and more fame for its new, so-called pro-women laws but the consequences of this are being faced by the thousands of innocent Indians who have been victimized by the misuse of these laws.

Each one of us would have seen, read or heard of incidents where the complete family of in-laws including grandparents and even kids were implicated in matrimonial litigations by a son’s / brother’s or uncle’s wife who claims to have been harassed by them. Merely on her such claims, complete families are arrested and tried for years. In the end, after years of litigation, it is often observed by the court that they were innocent and absolved of all charges. But, unfortunately, this is not the end of the harassment for them, nor can it wipe out what they have faced during the prolonged litigation period.

Right from the moment that the family is implicated in such false cases, they have to undergo losses. Starting from the mental harassment that they faced due to arrests, and the social humiliation related with it when they have never been subjected to police and courts in the past, and the financial burden that falls upon them to defend themselves legally, these families have to go through tough times on all fronts. In such situations of stress and harassment, old members of the family lose health and young siblings of the husbands suffer loss of career and education. Some very precious years of their lives which could have contributed to the development of a complete family are lost irreparably. Many such highly educated husbands falsely trapped in such cases had to lose their mental peace, career and development.

It has been observed that even the relatives of the husband who are not staying with the couple or connected with them are implicated on a mere statement of the complainant wife. Even the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India recently in its judgement dated October 17, 2012 in the matter of Geeta Mehrotra and Anr. Vs State of Uttar Pradesh has expressed concern regarding the over- implication in such cases, the exact wordings are quoted here :

“..the courts are expected to adopt a cautious approach in matters of quashing specially in cases of matrimonial dispute whether the FIR in fact discloses commission of an offence by the relatives of the principal accused or the FIR prima facie discloses a case of over-implication by involving the entire family of the accused at the instance of the complainant, who is out to settle her scores arising out of the teething problem or skirmish of domestic bickering while settling down in her new matrimonial surrounding .. “

Even as per the above, as visible from the above, it is a well known fact that many a times such allegations against the complete families of in-laws are made just to settle personal scores. But, the families who are implicated in false cases, as a result, face such a treatment that they even lose faith in the institution of marriage itself as just getting a son or brother married can land a complete family into jail.

After reading this or hearing about this menace, anyone would logically question as to why would any wife resort to filing false cases and would she at all gain anything through that ? Those who have closely seen such laws and wittnessed such cases would be able to understand it well, that the false accuser wife actually only gains and has to suffer no loss most of the times. The actual benefits may be even more in some cases but almost always, she does get a psychological feeling of achievement to have ruined the family members including the siblings of the spouse. Also, in many such cases, monetary gains available to her as remedy or relief through various sections of law are an added motivational factor behind such false allegations. It has been observed that many a times, after getting such gains at an interim stage the false accuser woman, to keep deriving long term benefits, never lets the cases end because if the accusations when proved false would not entitle her for gains of such a high order. In the whole process, the society is left to suffer in the hands of such law misusers.

One can logically conclude from the above that the only possibility of saving the society from the clutches of law misusers is to make a provision of punishment of such law misusers which will discourage their likes from doing the same acts in the future.