The apex court in its recent order directed the police and magistrate to stop automatic arrests in such cases and also recommended departmental action against police and judicial officers who violate its directive.
"Amendments to this much-misused law were long overdue. Lakhs of innocent people have suffered in last two decades due to this law about which the supreme court had warned of legal terrorism in 2005. The SIFF has hoped that this directive, if properly implemented, may put a brake to skyrocketing suicide rate of married men. About 64,048 married men committed suicide in 2013," Central India president of the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), Rajesh Vakharia said in a release here today.
"The court directive is just a temporary fix, which may very well fail," the release said, adding that a thorough amendment to the section is needed by merging it with Domestic Violence Act to create one single law.
Vakharia said that a permanent solution lies in the government consulting the law commissions, eminent jurists, NGOs and civil society to merge the country's two domestic violence laws, i.E. Section 498-A and Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA).
"Alimony has to be decided by competent family courts," the release added.