The Government is planning to review and change the Domestic violence act .

Its a welcome move though not far enough. What is needed is to scrap the current domestic violence act and to come out with a new Gender equal domestic Violence/Harmony Equal act like all developed countries.

The current domestic violence act was drafted by lawyers whose expertise on 1st principle of law making and justice can be shown to be questionable. Some of their key members are unable to understand that words police , bail , jail , bonds have no place in a civil law. A law to jail, "tadipar" and fine can be provided only in accordance with a criminal matter that is in criminal laws .

The similar set of lawyers fail lto provide IPC or the civil law where in the men have any rights though they make a claim that problems faced by men can be taken care of .

The other problem is that a specious argument by similar set of lawyers is made that residence right previously not available is being made available . Nothing can be farther from the truth. Women and men both have same residence rights infact women have better rights then men . Both can rent or buy houses. ( women actually pay less property taxes in some states so it becomes clear that women had marginally superior rights ) . what has happened in the new laws that husbands and their families have been denied residential rights. It should be important that convicted murderer is not denied residence in his owned or rented residence .

Further they failed to understand the Indian society that it is the Husabnds family providing the residence to a women in more than 99% cases. Such type of law, where your own right to stay in your own residence refused, in long run will make the poor girls family life more miserable as very few people will be really interested to marry girl who does not own a own residence.

The right of retired persons to live peacefully in houses purchased out of their retirement funds is being sought to be made unavailable to it as per present Domestic Violence LAW.

The other curious problem which has started that even violent women are getting their way in the domestic violence cases as there have been distrubing judgements to that affect .

In addition to that as the law failed to describe what is "live-in-realtionship" with a strict time farme to claim the legal rights form each other like all other developed countries, creating a situaion where a job and right of a prostitutes and normal women made euall and there is no difference at all.

Another disturbing element is regards custody of children . It has upheld the traditional notion of women as children making machines. A husband or mother-in-law who has raised his children could go to Jail merely on account of taking care of children . That there are reports of such happening raises furthur cause for complaint.

Another disturbing elements have been arrests happening in DV law for non presence . Civil and marital law does not envision arrests or arrest warrants. ( the only arrest warrants should be for non compliance of orders not for non presence where in ex parte order may be granted).

There have been distrubing cases where in the petitioner file in DV act and suppressed the notice to ensure the humiliation of arrests and somehow bring in the police in the civil law. Even women staying outside India, like USA/UK/Dubai filling the Domestic violence Act just to harrase and extrote the money from the husabnds family in Indian court.

This law is cynically ignorant of the first principle of human rights , dignity, law and justice .

Supreme court Judges themselves have termed it as a badly drafted law.

While Judicary seems to have a taken a much more proactive stance in containing misue of DV laws compared to 498a and dowry law where in almost a free for all free reign has been given to misusers . The obvious misuse and abuse of familes cases in DV , 498a , CRPC125 and dowry are too numerous .

It would however be wrong on our part to fail to note the fact that judiciary has played a key role in bringing out the the fact of misuse and abuse of innocent families and yet as mentioned by Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice Sema currently the law is such that they are forced to be a reluctant party to misuse.

It is also pertinant to note that according to the National Family Survey ( inspite of it using the now heavily criticised greenberg lake model rather then the more reliable conflict of Tactical scale model which is more relaible ) on domestic violence only 25% of the violence is caused by men and out of it a very small number is committed by husbands, while a full 75% of the violence is perpetrated by the women . The finding is not surprising since men tend to put the welfare of women over their own welfare. Indian men unlike Western counterparts look at it as lifelong committment and that is why this finding is not unsurprising . where as the blood male & female relative treat her as a burden to be passed on and hence they contribute to the violence against women more.

What is SIF ?

SIF group is loosley coupled conglomerate of many registered NGOs and independent Individuals on the ground . To name a few are

Bangalore :
Kutumb Rakashak Vedike ( KRV )
Save Indian Family foundation ( The most famous ) ( SIFF )
Save our mothers and Sisters. ( SOMS)

Delhi :
Save Family foundation ( SFF )

Kolkatta:
Bharat Bachao Sanstha ( BSS)

Mumbai :
Protect Indian Family ( PIF )

Hyderabad :
Sahana

Chennai :
Misuse Wanda ( no Misuse)

Jaipur :
Jaipur Sangyabalaya

Kerala:
Kerala Mens Right protection committee

USA :
Rakhsak
My Nation

SIF as group covers over 15000 people who have suffered misuse under various gender biased laws and gender biased implementation . SIF has intellectuals and members from all walk of life IIT , IIM ,all major engineering colleges, doctors , Psychatrists, Psyhcologists , retired Judges, Soldiers, high placed corporate members , People who have recived presidential certificates , who have fought for the nation, Entrepreneurs, Cab drivers , computer technicians , spread, accross 50 cities with helplines in numerous cities( last count 35 cities ) and all states except the North East , Bihar, Jharkand and chattisgarh .

The most key member of SIF is obviously Swarup Sarkar currently a Corporate Marketting Head who learned his marketing basics as Railway Hawker for 2 years.

To Tolerate abuse in the name of law is not acceptable.

What is SIF stand on the Review of the law:

The government has taken a decision to review the laws . It is a welcome move.
The government has decided to take the views of organisations speaking on behalf of abused families. This is also welcome .

However the current Domestic violence laws need to scrapped to be replaced by more reasonable laws a domestic harmony laws in consultation with a panel consisting of Retired judges. Such can be done in 6 months . Let us remove the lawyers from the equation and thier self interest. Let the Husband/wife say the truth in Family courts, instead of making twisted alligation against each other by the twisted advice oflawyers.

• Replace the word husband and wife with spouse .
• Replace the word men annd women with person.

Let us forget the Renuka Choudharie's intemperate remark in the heat of a moment like:

• "we will ask these husbands why they beat their wives " .
• " let the men to suffer"..etc

Let us not forget that Ravi Vyalavar or any of the other male ministers refused to do anything but Renuka has came forward beating the stiff opposition from womens organisations.

My earlier support for having more women parliamentarians is justified behond resonable dought. 

We have enough intelligent , thoughtfull, clearminded , sensible people in our team who have the expertise to investigate the the causes as to why a few husbands beat their wives but unfortunately she will have to supply these husbands case studies to us .We will have to use our evaluation to first find whether such occured or not and then do the root cause analysis.

Has SIF group of NGOs been invited ?

To the knowledge of any SIF member "No".

What procedures does SIF want the changes to the laws ?

This should not be a one time action . It should be continous consultation and participation. DV , 498a , CRPC 125 and Dowry are not the only laws. there are many other laws and social issues which are the issues for SIF. SIF would like a continuous consultation on the laws which impact them . One conference with lunch dinner and snacks cannot be the way . It has to be more involvement oriented.

There are host of other issues which are impacting the legal and social equality like joint custody , equal taxation , forced marriage on threat of rape case by jilted lovers, high suicde of men , fatherlessnesses , childless fathers, which needs Mens Welcfare ministery or commission to be formed .