Mother of all battles

Orissa had never before seen anything like this. Hundreds of women have lined up behind Sanjita, who alleges that she has been deprived of her paternity rights. The man she claims to be her father is an influential lawmaker in the ruling party – the reason why the police, she says, have done nothing beyond registering her complaint. But after the women joined Sanjita in her crusade, protested outside Chief Minister’s Naveen Patnaik’s residence and courted arrest, they might well be compelled to do more.

Sanjita had filed her FIR in Bhubaneswar’s Mahila Police Station on July 26 seeking action against Arabinda Dhali, an MLA of the ruling BJD and a former minister, who she says allegedly tortured her and forcibly married her off when she was only 14. Though police lodged a complaint against the MLA, who Sanjita claims is her biological father, under Sections 506 (criminal intimidation and threatening to kill), 294 (using abusive language) and 34 of the IPC, no further action has been taken so far.

The FIR says Sanjita, born to Kamala Baral, the first wife of Arabinda Dhali, was just 7 months old when the two got separated. Both opted for a second marriage, leaving Sanjita to be brought up by her maternal uncle, with whom she has been staying barring a small gap many years ago. This was when Sanjita was 12 and her uncle, citing inadequate means, expressed his inability to take care of her any further. The girl was then shifted from Malkangiri to her father’s flat in the MLA colony of Bhubaneswar. But her stepmother and Dhali’s in-laws tortured her endlessly and forced her to do menial domestic chores.

Dhali then forcibly married her off to his driver Rajiv Majumdar, who had a criminal background, on June 9, 2000. Now, according to the FIR, Sanjita was again tortured by her husband and in-laws; but when she approached Dhali for help he was completely indifferent to her plight.

Soon life became unbearable in her husband’s house and she fled to Gujarat along with her two daughters. There, as a junior supervisor, she got by on just Rs 3,000 a month. This was when Sanjita resolved to return to Orissa and put up a last fight. She met Dhali and begged for help, but now she was not only ignored but threatened as well. Finally she decided to make her grievances public and demand a DNA test to prove that her claims had basis.

Currently Sanjita and her children are being sheltered in Sanjivani Maa Ghara, a short stay home in Bhubaneswar. Says Sanjita: “For the past nine years, ever since my father threw me out, it’s been a living nightmare for me, and the only way out I feel is to take the matter to the courts.” And she has a winning chance, having saved her school leaving certificate and a copy of the admission register as evidence. She told TSI that she obtained the documents from the district inspector of schools in Malkangiri district by taking recourse to RTI. There are also allegations that Dhali wrote a letter on his official pad to the DI of schools on July 3, 1999 to issue his daughter a duplicate certificate.


It was only after women activists and political parties took up her case, and it became a hotly debated issue, that police summoned Dhali to the police station for primary investigations. In his statement Dhali, denying that Sanjita was his daughter, claimed that the high school certificate she produced was fake; that he never had any driver named Rajiv; and that his wife and brother-in-law had never met her. Dhali’s story is that his first wife Kamala had an extra-marital relationship with a man named Ashwani Kumar Ray, whose progeny Sanjita is. To prove his point he also produced a copy of the judgment of the sub-divisional judicial magistrate’s court in Malkangiri dated August 12, 1985.

Sanjita then submitted a petition to the State Commission for Women (SCW) on August 12 last – which in turn asked the police to conduct a DNA test on the lawmaker to ascertain Sanjita’s claim that she is Dhali’s biological daughter. But Dhali has refused to undergo any such test, saying the commission had no power to issue such a direction. “The SCW sought no clarification from me before issuing the order,” he alleged, adding that it was simply a conspiracy to tarnish his image. However, the then acting chairperson of the SCW, Usha Padhee, clarified: “As a quasi-judicial body the SCW is fully empowered to order a DNA test in such cases.”

Dhali countered this by filing a defamation suit of Rs 5 crore on August 17 against six persons, including Sanjita Majumdar, her mother Kamala Baral and social activist Rutuparna Mohanty in the civil judge senior division court in Bhubaneswar. Sanjita too moved the Orissa High Court on August 27 seeking a direction for a DNA test on Dhali.

The court accepted her petition, and on September 1 the state government ordered a crime branch probe into the dispute. Dhali’s writ petition, however, challenges Sanjita’s FIR, stating that no offence has been made out against him under Section 498 (A) of the IPC, which deals with dowry torture cases. He also pleaded that the offence under Sections 10 and 11 of the Child Marriage Act, as included in the FIR, could not be made out. On September 12 the High Court directed that there would be no curbs on the ongoing investigations, but that the charge-sheet could not be filed without the leave of the court – nor till that happened could any action be taken against Dhali.”

According to Sanjita, what her father most dreads is that she might lay claim on his property. Said Sanjita: “Though he started out as a mere salesman, my father is today worth at least Rs 1 crore. He owns petrol pumps, transport businesses and properties outside the state. I think he disowns me because of the property.”

Meanwhile, on September 7 the state cabinet gave its nod for the implementation of the Child Marriage Prevention Act, 2007 – which an official said could have been the direct outcome of this unseemly dispute. - Dhrutikam Mohanty

( TSI ENGLISH 27th September 2009)