How are women centric laws created? How do we constantly curse India as a patriarchal society? How have we completely lost the habit of reading beyond clickbait headlines?
Below is a classic example of how mainstream media picks up stories from a news agency, and without even verifying facts of the judgement, almost copy pastes ‘misleading’ articles.
On July 12, Voice For Men India reported a detailed judgement that came from the Madras High Court, where divorce was granted to a man, because of his wife’s perpetual suspecting nature, frequent visits to his workplace (college where he worked as a professor) and randomly linking him with his female colleagues.
Case In Brief:
Husband had filed an appeal against a Family Court’s order which dismissed his petition for divorce.
The Madras High Court allowed the husband’s appeal for divorce, after taking note of wife’s behaviour and her filing police complaint against the husband without any supporting or basis.
Removal of Mangalsutra (Thali)
Husband had also pointed out how his wife in the year 2011 had removed her mangalsutra – a scared thread for married women.
The Madras High Court categorically stated:
Removal of thali by itself cannot be a ground to presume mental cruelty.
What Madras High Court Said?
The bench of Justice V.M Velumani and Justice S Sounthar clearly remarked,
The removal of thali chain is often treated as an unceremonious act.
We don’t say for a moment that removal of thali chain per se sufficient to put an end to the marital knot, but the said act of respondent is a piece of evidence in drawing an inference about the intentions of the parties.
The act of respondent in removal of thali chain at the time of separation coupled with various other evidences available on record, compel us to come to a definite conclusion that the parties have no intention to reconcile and continue the marital knot.
You can read judgement in detail at the end of this article.
Mainstream Media Report on this Judgement:
We live in times, where most of the media does not read judgement/order in full, before reporting legal matters. Sadly, there has been a pattern, where every single portal or channel merely copy pastes the entire article from a news wire agency, while putting out their respective clickbait articles. Of course, any headline that evokes hate against perceived patriarchy is also a hit….and trending…
Below are few examples, how the above story was completely misreported – most media has still not withdrawn the same, or merely edited their articles with same headline.
The News Minute who ran similar misleading story, did put out a clarification, however, once again with a clickbait headline. When a twitter user pointed out the same, Editor-in-Chief, Dhanya Rajendran asked him to read the full article.
Read the story, till the end.
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) July 15, 2022
Hear every single misleading word and misquoting by Palki Sharma, Managing Editor – WION News. We are posting actual video in our twitter thread (click) here, in case the original tweet is deleted by the channel at a later date.
#Gravitas | The Madras High Court has observed that removal of mangalsutra by wife is mental cruelty of the highest order.
— WION (@WIONews) July 15, 2022
Would you agree? Is mangalsutra even mandatory?
Listen in to @palkisu pic.twitter.com/r7Gi0yIAsE
Earlier this month, Supreme Court judge Justice J.B. Pardiwala criticised the use of social media to launch personal attacks on judges, saying this will evolve into a “dangerous scenario”.
During his address at the Second Justice H.R. Khanna Memorial National Symposium, Justice Pardiwala quoted,
Personal attacks on judges for their judgments lead to a dangerous scenario where the judges have to think about what media thinks instead of what the law really thinks. This harms the rule of law.
The judge said social and digital media was primarily resorted to expressing personalised opinions more against the judges, rather than a constructive critical appraisal of their judgments. He said this tendency was harming the judicial institution and lowering its dignity.
The judge added,
In India which cannot be defined as a completely mature or defined democracy, social media is employed frequently to politicise purely legal and constitutional issues.
READ FULL JUDGEMENT HERE:
READ JUDGEMENT | Suspecting Character Of Husband, Visiting His Office & Linking Him With Female Colleagues Is Mental Cruelty: Madras High Court
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS ON THIS TWEET BELOW:
Madras High Court Mangalsutra (Thali) Judgement | How Mainstream Media Reported Misleading Headline | Read Full Judgement Here
— Voice For Men India (@voiceformenind) July 17, 2022
Most media has still not withdrawn the same@narendramodi @smritiirani:This is how India is constantly labelled as Patriarchalhttps://t.co/tQyZDyhd6T
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