Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2015

On Making 498A IPC Compoundable and the Stats supporting the Proposal

Just how are the stats specifying the percentage of alleged misuse of 498A, IPC, being derived?! In support of proposals to amend Section 498A, there seem to be stats doing the rounds of the number and percentage of supposedly false cases. Some time ago, ToI published a table in an article claiming that 10% of dowry cases are false. The table was attributed to NCRB, and the same figures seem to have appeared in  another piece , this time attributed to a 'senior official'. The Asian Age, too, published  a piece  against the proposed amendment of 'dowry law', stating that the Union Minister of State for home Haribhai Chaudhary had cited the same figures in the Lok Sabha although this statement doesn't appear to find mention in the  uncorrected Lok Sabha debates of the day . The piece in the Asian Age pointed out that there's no mention of what the stats are based on; if they're based on acquittals, they mistakenly equate an acquittal with proof of the relevan