The Supreme Court on Friday said it would hear on Monday the petitions seeking revisiting a judgment that had reduced the severity of the anti-dowry penal law on the offence of subjecting a married woman to cruelty by her spouse and in-laws.
The decision came after a bench comprising CJI Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud said the orders on the matter cannot be found as the apex court website got “hacked yesterday”.
“Somebody tried to hack the website. All the people worked whole night to fix the problem,” the bench said and assured senior advocate for NGO ‘Social Action Forum’, that her plea on the issue would be listed for hearing on April 23 along with other petitions.
A two judge bench of the apex court in July last year had voiced concern over “abuse” of section 498 A (subjecting a married woman to cruelty) of the IPC and passed a slew of directions including that no arrest should “normally be effected” without verifying allegations as violation of human rights of innocents cannot be brushed aside.
later a three-judge bench led by the CJI expressed disagreement with the verdict and appointed senior Advocate V Shekhar as an amicus curiae to assist it in revisiting the judgement.
Jaising today said a bench headed by Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel had referred the similar plea of NGO to the CJI for hearing on April 11. She said the order was not found as the apex court website was non-functional.
The apex court had issued notices to Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Women and Child Development and National Commission of Women and sought their responses while disagreeing with the July 27 verdict of a smaller bench.