NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has expressed the anguish that the menace of dowry is still prevalent despite a law enacted in 1961 prohibiting the acceptance of dowry. It directed the setting up of a committed and sincere machinery to implement the Act and the Rules to hasten the eradication of the evil.

In ancient times, dowry was given by a woman at the time of marriage as a nest-egg or security in her matrimonial home, the court said. "But in course of time it assumed a different shape and degenerated into a subject of barter, acceptance of the woman as a wife depending on what her parents would pay as dowry, varying with the qualification and the status of the bridegroom's family." A three-Judge Bench, comprising Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti, Justice G.P. Mathur and Justice P.K. Balasubramanyan, passing the order on a public interest litigation petition directed the Centre and the States to consider framing of rules to compel men seeking government employment to furnish information whether they had taken dowry; if so, whether the dowry had been made over to the wife as contemplated under the Act. The rules could also seek such information from those already in government service.

Governments' failure

The Bench faulted both the Centre and the States for their failure to put serious effort in the implementation of the Dowry Prohibition Act.

"It is not as if the menace posed by dowry has in any way lessened. One can take judicial notice of the fact that cases of dowry harassment are splashed in newspapers almost everyday. When there is failure on the part of the Executive to strictly implement a law like the one in question, enacted to tackle a social problem which has assumed menacing proportions, the court has a duty to step in to give a mandamus," the Bench said.

The court asked the State Governments to give wide publicity to Sections 3 and 4 of the Rules providing for the maintenance of lists of presents or gifts to the bride and bridegroom and to appoint a sufficient number of dowry prohibition officers with independent charge in each district of the State concerned; to take steps to step up anti-dowry literacy among the people through lok adalats, radio, television and newspapers.

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