THIS PERTAINS to the recent proposal of elevating the status of National Commission of Women (NCW) to that of a court and giving powers equivalent of a Member of Parliament (MP) to the chairperson of the National Commission of Women.

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), Bangalore, a non – profit, non funded non-governmental organisation (NGO) committed to the cause of spreading the message of gender equality and family harmony in the society since the past two to three years, in addition to its efforts to help victims of misuse of marital laws and create awareness about the same, has some strong objections to such a proposal owing to the following points:

• NCW, as designed to be an astute body working for the causes of women has miserably failed in its duties to protect the rights of women and safeguard the same as the arrest data published by the National Crime Records Bureau showed that close to 1, 20, 000 women have been arrested in the last four years for complaints under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). These women are the mothers and sisters of the husbands accused of false dowry allegations by unscrupulous women who fail to recognise family values and view marriage as a business opportunity to earn tax free money. Such women are shielded by the NCW and as such, NCW does not deserve to be given this special consideration.
• Very recently, the NCW had made quite obnoxious amendment to demand maintenance for live – in partners and to remove the clause of adultery as a reason to deny maintenance to promiscuous and adulterous women. Such a proposal in itself is a direct insult to the sacrosanct social institution called marriage and to those devout and faithful wives who are committed to their husbands. Granting equal privileges as wives to a live-in partner directly degrades the status of marriage in the society, which is a solemnised vow in presence of family elders whereas there is no commitment factor in a live – in relationship. And suggesting maintenance for live – in partners is luring more women to enter into multiple relationships and demand maintenance from each partner. This is a direct attempt to degrade and demean the existing status of women in the society. Ironically, this statement is coming from NCW, supposed to be working for the uplift of women in the society. Thus NCW, working to protect the rights of promiscuous and adulterous women at the cost of devout and sincere women does not deserve an equivalent status to that of a court.
• In order to support its above claim, NCW went ahead and published that in 70 per cent of cases women are denied maintenance on grounds of adultery. SIFF activists when filed for data to support the claim made by NCW, through an application under Rights to Information Act, 2005, NCW in its reply categorically denied maintaining any such data. It was a white lie published by NCW and a delirious attempt by NCW to fudge statistics and present an otherwise picture to realise vendetta best known to it. Such a body, severely lacking integrity and accountability, does not deserve such a position.
• A court of law, supposed to be a temple of justice, is a place where people get their grievances redressed in a procedural manner and such a temple has a very high demand to be fair, unbiased, impartial and just. Granting the status equivalent to court to a women’s commission is direct and in – the – face discrimination against men who are anyways facing a lot of discrimination even in the current scenario when NCW has no judicial powers and every year more than double the number of men are committing suicides than women, thanks to the heavily lopsided and duplicated laws supported and pampered by NCW. One can only imagine the situation when such a body filled with people of anti – male views assumes a position of power.

Hence, keeping in view the above objections, we severely condemn the proposal to elevate the status of NCW to that of a court and grant privileges equivalent to a Member of Parliament to the chairperson of NCW and ask it to be dropped categorically and buried forever in the bud for larger public interest to restore faith and trust in the system.