A man, Atul Subhash, got married and was leading a normal life, he even got a child in the marriage and then something went wrong. His wife decided to leave him and divorce him. He sought the custody of his child but his wife filed a case against him under Section 498 A. The section reads as under;
Section 498A. Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty.
1[Whoever, being the husband or the relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such woman to cruelty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine.
Explanation.—For the purposes of this section, “cruelty means”—
(a) any wilful conduct which is of such a nature as is likely to drive the woman to commit suicide or to cause grave injury or danger to life, limb or health (whether mental or physical) of the woman; or
(b) harassment of the woman where such harassment is with a view to coercing her or any person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any property or valuable security or is on account of failure by her or any person related to her to meet such demand.]
A case was filed in Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh under the above section. The estranged wife claimed that Atul Subhash was harassing him with dowry demands and agreed to withdraw all allegations if she was paid 3 Crores.
The case was being heard by Family Court Judge Rita Kaushik, as revealed in the suicide note and video left behind by Atul Subhash. He wrote a detailed note where he has alleged that the judge Rita Kaushik demanded 5,00,000 as payment for amicable ‘settlement’ and when Atul expressed his inability to pay such an amount, imposed a 40,000 Rupee per month ‘maintenance’ payment on him. In a chamber hearing, the wife had apparently told Atul, why does he too not commit suicide.
The question that begs to be answered is, how many such Judges like Rita Kaushik, do we have in our system?
Family courts exist all across the country and family disputes often end up in these courts.
Are the judges in these courts making such ‘settlements’ rather than deciding the cases on their merit?
Would the Government of India initiate a CBI investigation into this specific allegation and also launch a clean up drive in the justice system?
Will the Supreme Court, the last custodian of all things related to justice, take suo-motto cognizance of this and launch a clean up drive or an investigation into the assets of all the judicial officers who preside in courts across the country?
If the justice system itself is rotten, then the question is do we live in a lawful society?
If the justice system itself has failed, what recourse do people have?
