‘Special cells for children, women legal’

Shibu Thomas TNN 

Mumbai: The special cells for women and children in police stations are legal, the Bombay high court ruled on Wednesday. 
    A division bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Sadhna Jadhav dismissed a petition filed by a Mantralaya peon who had challenged a notice issued by a special cell from Dadar police station following a complaint lodged by his wife. “The petition is devoid of merit,” the judges said while refusing to give any relief to Suresh Patil (name changed), a resident of BDD chawl in Worli. 
    The cells were started in Mumbai as a pilot project by the United Nations Development Fund for Women along with the state government and Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 2002. 
    The cells, housed in police stations, are manned by two persons, including a social worker, who help women and children facing harassment. In 2005, the state government started funding of the cells and currently there are 39 cells at the district level across Maharashtra. 
    According to the state government, cells will be set up in talukas and by December there will be 144 such units attached to police stations in Maharashtra. Apart from counselling couples, the cells will help women and children who are victims of crime to file cases. 
    According to Patil, he received a notice in March asking him to attend the special cell attached to Dadar police station as his wife Malathy had lodged a complaint. Patilclaimed in his petition that he thought the notice was intended to intimidate him or to extort money. In his plea, Patil challenged the legal validity of such cells and the notice issued by them. 
    Additional public prosecutor Ajay Gadkari and advocate Maharaukh Adenwalla, who represented TISS, said the notices were authorized and the state government had taken up funding of the cells in 2005 on the basis of a government resolution. Adenwala assured the court that henceforth all notices issued by the cell will have a subject line ‘family matters’ and will be signed by a social worker.


Source:::: The Times of India, 27-09-2012, p.07. http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOIM&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&Enter=true&Skin=TOINEW