56% of men who get booked for dowry harassment are techies, says forum for harried husbands

Injustice bytes IT's Adams. Since the Domestic Violence Act 2005 came to the help of harried wives, more and more techie hubbies are getting drawn into cases involving their spouses.

Some 56 per cent of men, who get booked under the dowry prohibition Act or the domestic violence Act, happen to be those working in IT-BPO and Business, says Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), a pan-Indian forum for harried husbands. All of them happen to be in the age group 24-28 years. SIFF chairman Pandurang Katti says the findings came out in a sample survey they conducted of 1,200 aggrieved husbands last year.

The foundation has shot off memoranda to the President, the Chief Justice of India, the Law Commission and Sonia Gandhi to correct the "lop-sided law that destabilises thousands of families in the country."

Why techies and businessmen? "Blundly put," says Katti, "it's because the techies and biz people have more money." It is not limited to the techno-city alone. There has been a 20 per cent annual increase in dowry-related cases all over the country in the past four years. National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data says 50,703 husbands were booked for dowry-related charges in 2003; the number went up to 75,930 in 2007.

"The domestic violence Act is skewed justice," fumes MG Kumar, of India International Law Firm. "I handle scores of cases involving well-placed husbands getting spiked for no fault of theirs."

A senior advocate, who did not wish to be named, says he defended a techie who had married a girl, supposedly an orphan, but this wasn't the case. The girl's relative sweet-talked her into filing a case under dowry harassment just to get a quick buck from her husband, the advocate points out.