COVER HINDI - Ministry of Women and Child Development

Meeting of the Chairpersons of State
Commission
10.13 A meeting of the Chairpersons of State Commissions
for Women was held on 22 nd August,2006 at the NCW
Conference Hall. Action plan of the Commission for the
year 2006-2007,implementation of the ‘chalo gaon ki ore’,
need for statutory Women’s Commission in all States,
problems faced by various States Commissions,
programme for Bal Vivah Virodh Abhiyan to be carried
out in various States, implementation of PNDT Act in
different States, Problem of trafficking in different States,
measures to be taken to tackle this problem, were some of
the issues which were discussed during the interaction
A one day workshop on ‘Preventing and
Combating Human Trafficking with Special
Focus on Children and Women’ on 21 st
November, 2006 at Guwahati
10.14 The Ministry of Women and Child Development,
Ministry of Home Affairs, National Commission for
women and the National Human Rights Commission in
collaboration with UNICEF have decided to work in unison
against trafficking. For this purpose, all the four had
organized a one day workshop on ‘Preventing and
Combating Human Trafficking with Special Focus on
Children and Women’ on 21 st November, 2006 at Regional
Centre, National Institute of Public Cooperation and
Children Development (NIPCCD), Guwahati. The
objectives of the workshop were:-
— To discuss the draft integrated Plan of Action to
Prevent and Combat Human Trafficking with Special
Focus on Children and Women; and
— Identify qualitative and quantitative targets that
would enable implementation of the integrated Plan
of Action once the same is finalized.The final report
of the workshop is under preparation.
Review of Laws
10.15 The following Laws have been proposed by the
Commission for review:
i) The National Commission for Women Act, 1990 –
Amendment to the National Commission for Women Act,
1990 has been proposed in order to strengthen the institution.
The main features of the proposed amendments include:
a) Conferring more powers on the Commission;
b) A separate investigation team to look into
complaints.
ii) Section 497 IPC- The recommendations of the
Commission have been submitted to the Government.
Recommendations of the Commission are as under:-
— Section 497 does not envisage the prosecution of
the wife by the husband for ‘adultery’. The offence
of adultery as defined in section 497 can only be
committed by a man, not by a woman. The section
provides expressly that the wife shall not be
punishable even as an abettor. The contemplation
of the law, evidently, is that the wife, who is involved
in an illicit relationship with another man, is a victim
and not the author of the crime
— The existing provision in IPC is based on the mindset
that the wife is a chattel possessed by the husband
who is the sole aggrieved person in an incident of
adultery. However the commission does not feel that
by merely prescribing punishment for the females
by amending section 497, the marriage can be
protected or saved. Considering the relatively
socially dis-empowered position of women, the
Commission suggests no amendments to section 497
of IPC.
— The Commission, however recommends suitable
amendments to section 198 (2) of the Criminal
Procedure Code, which as of now disqualifies the
wife of an unfaithful husband from prosecuting him
for his promiscuous behavior. The wife in such cases
ought to be the “person aggrieved” and competent
to file a complaint under section 198 of the CRPC.
— As the wife already has a recourse to various other
provisions against the husband , such as section
498A of IPC , seeking maintenance under section
125 of criminal procedure Code ,relief under the
protection of women against domestic violence Act,
2005 , initiating proceedings for divorce etc, there
is no reason that she should be debarred from
initiating action under section 198 of CRPC.
— The commission is of the view that there may be
many instances where the woman wants to save the
marriage and sees the adulterous relationship as an
aberration and the issue of adultery should be viewed
as a breach of trust, treated as a civil wrong rather
than a criminal offence. However, this should be
done so after a national consensus.
160 Annual Report 2006-07