A Delhi court has sentenced a man, along with his 80-year-old mother, to two years in jail for subjecting his wife to cruelty and harassing her for dowry, holding that the mother-in-law "being herself a woman, had victimised another woman".
Metropolitan magistrate Ekta Gauba held 48-year-old Rajesh Kumar and his aged mother Premo Devi guilty for cruelly treating his wife, whom he had married in 1988, under sections 498A (subjecting woman to cruelty) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC, while adding that the convicts did not deserve to be released on probation.
"In view of the fact that Premo Devi being herself a woman had victimised another woman and Rajesh, being the husband of the woman and responsible to keep her happy, had victimised and harassed her for demand of dowry... They do not deserve to be released on probation," the judge said, while adding that "harassment of women for demand of dowry is increasing in today's scenario".
The court also directed the mother-son duo to pay Rs 5,000 each as compensation to the victim.
The court, while convicting them, relied on the testimony of the victim and her mother who told the court that two years after the marriage, her in-laws started demanding money and articles.
It however, acquitted Rajesh's cousin saying that prosecution could not prove if any cruelty was meted out by him to the victim.
According to the prosecution, the woman lodged a complaint in July 1996 that between May 1990 and March 1996, Rajesh, his mother and his cousin Bijender subjected her to cruelty in order to compel her to meet their unlawful demand for dowry.
It also alleged that Rajesh and his mother had dishonestly misappropriated gift items of the woman which were entrusted to them at the time of marriage and failed to return the same when she demanded them back.
The woman, a mother of two kids, alleged that despite fulfilling the monetary demands of her in-laws on most occasions, she was beaten up them in their greed for more. Unable to bear it, she managed to escape and lodged a police complaint against them.
Rajesh and her mother had pleaded innocence and claimed that they were falsely implicated by the woman as she wanted the matrimonial house to be transferred in her name.
