SC: Dowry givers shielded from prosecution if aggrieved party

NEW DELHI: Though the Dowry Prohibition Act criminalises both taking and giving of dowry, the givers — which means the bride and her family members — would be shielded from prosecution if they are aggrieved persons, Supreme Court on Thursday said, reports Amit Anand Choudhary.
SC's clarification came on a plea of a man who submitted that an FIR should be lodged against his wife and in-laws also as they had admitted in their harassment complaint against him that dowry was given at the time of the wedding. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran, however, said that Section 7(3) was introduced in the Act to address such kind of situations.

SC said Section 7(3) was introduced in the Dowry Prohibition Act to address such kind of situations to protect the aggrieved parties who have to confess to giving bribes while filing complaints of domestic violence and dowry harassment after marriage.

The top court noted that the amendment in the law to introduce Section 7 (3) was brought on the basis of joint parliamentary committee report, which suggested that the giver of the dowry should not be dealt with on equal footing as the taker and that the giver of dowry is forced to do so by societal and customary norms.

One of the recommendations of the committee was that the givers of dowry, i.e., the parents, should not be equated with those who take the dowry, as the givers are victims rather than criminals, as parents are compelled to give dowry and they do not do so out of their free will.
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