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The Supreme Court on Friday observed that marriage is a sacred and noble institution based on mutual trust, companionship, and respect, but the evil of dowry has unfortunately reduced this sacred bond to a mere commercial transaction. A bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan said that dowry deaths are not a crime against an individual but against society as a whole.
A means to satisfy material greed
The bench said, “This Court cannot ignore the fact that marriage, in its true form, is a sacred and noble institution based on mutual trust, companionship, and respect. However, in recent times, this sacred bond has unfortunately been reduced to a mere commercial transaction.” The evil of dowry, though often disguised as a gift or voluntary offering, has in reality become a means of displaying social status and satisfying material greed.
Know what the dowry issue is
The bench made this observation while cancelling the bail of a man accused of poisoning his wife for dowry just four months after their marriage. The Supreme Court found the High Court’s order releasing the man on bail to be “repugnant and impractical” as it ignored the gravity of the crime, the corroborated dying declarations, and the legal concept of dowry death.
One of the most despicable manifestations of social evil
It stated that the “social evil of dowry” not only destroys the sanctity of marriage but also promotes the systematic oppression and subjugation of women. The bench said, “The phenomenon of dowry death is one of the most heinous manifestations of this social evil, where a young woman’s life is ended in her in-laws’ home, and that too for no fault of hers, but only to satisfy the insatiable greed of others.”
Violation of the constitutional guarantee of equality and a dignified life
The court further observed that such heinous crimes strike at the very root of human dignity and violate the constitutional guarantee of equality and a dignified life under Articles 14 and 21.
