Pune
Mirror: Pune: Monday, 09 February 2015.
Proposal to
set up benches in places other than Mumbai pending for two years; no online
information regarding pending cases.
Even as
crimes against women in Maharashtra shot up by over 40 per cent last year,
justice is being consistently delayed. Despite a legal mandate, the Maharashtra
State Commission for Women has failed to set up branches across the state,
forcing aggrieved women to rush to the head office in Mumbai to seek justice.
For some, it is a matter of travelling thousands of kilometres to try and make
their case.
The
commission has also failed to display the status and information of cases and
pendency online, which would have helped avoid the rush.
Women
activists have been demanding decentralisation of the benches, but with most of
the commission members belonging to political parties, the buck is being passed
to the state government and the proposals have been pending for the past two
years.
Meanwhile,
according to the CID report of 2014, atrocities against women went up by 46.08
per cent last year. The state also had the dubious distinction of having the
most crimes against women in the country, after Andhra Pradesh.
This state of
affairs was revealed when citybased social activist Vihar Durve filed a
petition under Right to Information (RTI) Act in January this year, asking for
information about the status and number of cases filed from 2013 till date. The
response came on February 5, stating that the commission is still gathering the
information and therefore it cannot be availed at this stage.
Durve later
filed another application, asking about the proposal to decentralise the
benches of the commission, to which the latter repied that it has only one
office in Mumbai.
Speaking to
Mirror, Durve, who has filed a petition in the Bombay High Court, considering
the pendency of 56,000 cases in the various courts includes Pune, said,
"We won the battle in court and sought an order of appointment of
additional judges. However, the pendency could have been prevented had the
commission acted promptly. How will women from a small hamlet in Latur district
approach the commission?"
Advocate
Manisha Tulpule, who has been handling cases of sexual violence against women,
and is also a former adviser to the statutory committee on the Immoral Traffic
(Prevention) Act, said, "There are counselling centres in each district,
but they do not have the power that commission members have. There is a need
for at least five places in the state where all members can hear the grievances
of women."
Commission
chairperson Susieben Shah, said, "We have sent the proposal to the state
for headquarters at all regional levels, including Pune, Nagpur, Latur,
Aurangabad, Nashik, etc. We have conducted three hearings so far in places
other than Mumbai where we received a huge response and more than 200
cases."
However, Shah
did not hesitate to pass the buck to the state. "We are not very hopeful
about the response from the new government. We had started the initiative by
setting up a team of lawyers to help aggrieved women."
We have sent
the proposal to the state for headquarters at regional levels, including Pune,
Nagpur, Latur, Aurangabad and Nashik.
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