Marriage reduced to commercial transaction due to evil of dowry: SC

New Delhi: Marriage is a sacred and noble institution founded on mutual trust, companionship and respect, but the pious bond has regrettably been reduced to a mere commercial transaction due to the evil of dowry, the Supreme Court remarked on Friday.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said dowry death is not merely an offence against an individual but a crime against the society at large.

"This court cannot lose sight of the fact that marriage, in its true essence, is a sacred and noble institution founded on mutual trust, companionship and respect. However, in recent times, this pious bond has regrettably been reduced to a mere commercial transaction. The evil of dowry, though often sought to be camouflaged as gifts or voluntary offerings, has in reality become a means to display social status and to satiate material greed," the bench said.

The observations of the bench came while cancelling the bail of a man accused of poisoning his wife for dowry just four months into their marriage.

The apex court found the high court's order granting bail to the man "perverse and unsustainable" for it ignored the gravity of the offence, the corroborated dying declarations and the statutory presumption of dowry death.

It said the "social evil of dowry" not only corrodes the sanctity of marriage, but also perpetuates systemic oppression and subjugation of women.

"When such demands transgress the bounds of reason and culminate in cruelty -- or worse, in the untimely death of a young bride -- the offence transcends the private sphere of the family and assumes the character of a grave social crime. It ceases to remain a mere personal tragedy and becomes an affront to the collective conscience of the society.

"The phenomenon of dowry deaths represents one of the most abhorrent manifestations of this social malaise, where the life of a young woman is extinguished within her matrimonial home -- not for any fault of her own, but solely to satisfy the insatiable greed of others," then bench said.

The court said such heinous offences strike at the very root of human dignity and violate the constitutional guarantees of equality and a life with dignity under Articles 14 and 21.

"They corrode the moral fibre of the community, normalise violence against women and erode the foundations of a civilised society. In this backdrop, this court is constrained to observe that judicial passivity or misplaced leniency in the face of such atrocities would only embolden perpetrators and undermine public confidence in the administration of justice.

"A firm and deterrent judicial response is, therefore, imperative -- not only to uphold the majesty of law and do justice in the present case, but also to send an unequivocal message that neither law nor the society will countenance barbarities born out of the evil of dowry," the bench said.

The top court said the alarming rise in the number of dowry-death cases necessitates strict judicial scrutiny.

"Permitting the accused to remain at large in the face of such material would erode the deterrent object of sections 304B and 498A, IPC," it added.