Going by the definition of Domestic Violence Act, 2005, of India, a woman can file charges against a relative whosoever financially/economically abuses to her. So, apart from all the IPC/CrPC sections applicable for this offence, the Daughter-in-law should be charged under DV act as well.
BUT, since, the hidden agenda of creating this DV Act was to give supreme powers and the right to claim victimization to a Daughter-in-law only, the poor mother-in-law has been kept out to be an aggrieved party.
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=31_05_2010_007_007&mode=undefined
A woman and five of her family were arrested on Sunday for allegedly drugging and robbing the woman's 75- year-old mother-in-law.
According to the police, 28- year-old Meetu Talwar, along with her brother, mother, aunt, uncle and cousin-in-law, allegedly drugged Har Kaur before making away with cash and jew- ellery worth over Rs 22 lakh, from her Tilak Nagar residence on May 15.
“We got suspicious after Meetu, (her brother) Kamal Nain and (her mother) Parvinder went missing from their home just a day after the incident,“ said a senior police officer on the condition of anonymity.
The police said the absconding trio came further under the scanner after the police found out the family had been borrowing large sums of money from local lenders.
“It was revealed that Meetu, along with her brother and mother had been indulging in financial deals, which includ- ed mortgage, payment of interest against principle and monthly committee schemes.
It was also learnt that Meetu was in huge debt,“ the officer said.
The trio was finally held from their relatives' house in Hari Nagar.
The officer said Meetu had confessed to the crime and revealed she had borrowed money for her first husband's medical treatment, which she could not pay back. She had also borrowed a large sum from her maternal aunt, which she was under pressure to repay,“ the officer added.
Anand Holla
Posted On Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 02:16:07 AM
Her lawyer had argued in court that she had been driven by temporary insanity. But what saved a 29-year-old mother accused of killing her daughter moments after birth - from a possible life sentence was the testimony of the doctor who performed the post-mortem on the child’s body. The court did find her guilty of secretly disposing the child’s body and sentenced her to 16 months of imprisonment. She had already served the sentence as she had been unable to secure bail while the trial was on, so she walked free.
So, on January 15, 2009, she gave birth to the baby at her parents’ Bhayander home with help from her family and allegedly banged the newborn’s head against the wall, killing her instantly. She then stuffed the baby’s corpse into a plastic bag and flung it out of her bathroom window into a garbage bin outside. A sweeper found the body and informed the Mira Road police, who arrested the woman on January 24. She was subsequently charged under Sections 302 (murder) and 318 (secret disposal of child’s body) of the IPC. In the trial before the Sessions Court, defence lawyer Ashish Chavan argued that his client’s violent reaction was due to the fact that she was suffering from postpartum depression and because the child was born by precipitate labour, meaning she was born less than three hours after the mother went into labour. Postpartum depression is a form of clinical depression that mostly affects women after childbirth, generating a vast range of feelings like sadness, loneliness, fear or lack of love towards their baby - and guilt for having such feelings. It is caused mainly due to hormonal imbalance. Chavan stressed that in extreme cases of postpartum depression, the mother suffers from temporary insanity. However, it was Chavan’s argument that the hydrostatic test wasn’t performed during the post-mortem that saved the woman. |
