Beyond the beat: Cop studies legal aspects of cruelty against women
IT MIGHT have taken him six years, but Hemant Deshmukh, a Naik in the Mumbai Police Special Branch, has won accolades for selecting a socially relevent topic like ‘Judicial Response to the Law Relating to Cruelty Against Women’ for his Doctorate of Philosophy dissertation. With the University of Mumbai conferring the 40-yearold his Doctorate of Philosophy in December, senior IPS officers said a constable taking such a topic was “rare”.
Inside the office of Special Branch-I on Wednesday, officers were busy gearing up for the security protocol for the Prime Minister’s visit on Thursday. But they were more that willing to relieve Deshmukh for an interview, their pride quite evident. “He has written something on the ladies,” remarked a colleague.
With 20 years of service in various departments, including the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Deshmukh says his interest to complete a dissertation came towards the time he finished his LLB — he chose law as a secondary subject as it would help in his tenure as a police officer. Earlier, Deshmukh’s dream of getting into engineering were squashed as his policeman father’s salary was too meagre. In 2004, he finally chose the dissertation subject after being counseled by his mentor and guide Dr Suresh Mane, head of the Department of Law, University of Mumbai.
The research, divided into narrative and critical analysis of 3,000 judgments from Indian courts since 1897, chooses to probe the scope and judicial interpretation of the term ‘cruelty’ in various sections relating to crime against women. The thesis has painstakingly elaborated every scenario leading to each judgment, and probed matrimonial situations and conduct of the husband leading to a crime situation.
“A s a cop, I am exposed to many a situations, but some of the cases here were quite a shock.
Imagine a husband in Maharashtra paying Rs 5,000 to a neighbour to get his wife gang-raped after her family refused to pay dowry? The judgments, picked from law libraries across the city, had some of the most chilling matrimonial crimes I have ever come across,” says Deshmukh, who is also studying for his LLM.
“These days professors and others who are into research walk to my office to read my work,” he adds.
“As a subject it was the most socially relevant. With the changing times, the nature of cruelty against women has been changing and it was time someone studied the judicial interpretation of every such action,” says his guide Dr Mane.
“In a city like Mumbai, where everyone is after money, it is Deshmukh’s zeal that stands apart. The fact that someone from a lower middle background and with a tough service background like this completed research in such a social subject should itself serve as a model.”
* CITY ANCHOR SENIORS SAY CHOICE OF TOPIC FOR DISSERTATION RARE FOR A POLICE OFFICER, ACADEMICIANS CALL IT VERY SOCIALLY RELEVANT