The Bombay high court on Thursday warned the government of Maharashtra of contempt action if it fails to issue a resolution directing private hospitals to treat victims of sexual harassment, acid atta
The Bombay high court on Thursday warned the government of Maharashtra of contempt action if it fails to issue a resolution directing private hospitals to treat victims of sexual harassment, acid attack and rape free of cost. The court also asked the state to set an outer limit to implement the Dowry Prohibition Act.
The division bench of Justice A.S. Oka and Justice P.D. Naik said that the Dowry Prohibition Act was in existence since 2003, but the officers themselves were not aware of it and as the government has not set an outer limit to implement it, the Act had not been implemented till date.
The bench asked the state to fix an outer limit to implement the Act.
The bench also noted that the state had not taken cognisance of the advertisements and websites that openly demanded dowry.
Petitioner counsel Rajeev Chavan told the court that the government had during earlier hearings in principle agreed to issue a resolution directing private hospitals to treat victims of sexual harassment, acid attack victims and rape free of cost but nothing has been done till date.
Following this, the court warned the government that if it informed the court about this but have still not issued a government resolution then the court would initiate contempt action against the government.
By the said decision, private hospitals will have to treat women who have been victim of rape or any sexual offence and the bill will be footed by the government.
The bench posted the petitions for further hearing on June 21 and directed the government to inform the court about the resolution and also file a compliance report on what other steps it has taken on implementation on recommendations made by the Dharmadhikari committee.
While hearing a bunch of petitions on women’s safety the government had appointed the committee headed by retired Justice C.S. Dharmadhikari to suggest ways to curb crimes against women. The committee had, among other things, recommended a ban on dance bars, which remained open till late in the night. It had also suggested that vulgar activities on Facebook and other social networking sites, mobile phones and computers should be monitored and tackled on a priority basis.
