Petition filed against Sriprakash Jaiswal for 'old wives' comment

Union Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal may have apologised for his comment about  old wives and how much fun they may or may not be, but the repurcussions of the statement are far from over. Now, a petition has been filed against Jaiswal in a district court in Kanpur for his sexist remark. The petitioner, Anita Dua, who runs an NGO Lakshya, has said that Jaiswal should be charged with defamation and making obscene comments in public, reported NDTV. [caption id=“attachment_477781” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sriprakash Jaiswal. AFP[/caption] The court will record her statement on 8 October. If found guilty for defamation, Jaiswal could be sent to jail for a maximum period of two years; if charged and convicted for obscene remarks, he could be sentenced for three months. At a poetry summit on Sunday, comparing India’s win over Pakistan at the World T20 to marriage, Jaiswal had said, “Latest victories and new marriages have something unique about them…As the years pass and the wife becomes older that amount of fun also doesn’t remain in the marriage.” Opposition party activists and women’s’ rights groups quickly latched on to his comment and said that the minister should either apologise or resign over his statement. However, the minister offered a convoluted defence, saying that the statement had been taken out of context, and had been edited to make it more controversial. “People are angry because my words were taken out of context. I was at an inauguration ceremony, when I heard India defeated Pakistan in cricket. People were celebrating, so I stopped the ceremony and asked people to celebrate, beacuse it wouldn’t be fun celebrating an old victory, the same way one cannot enjoy wedding celebrations with an old wife,” he said. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari had also said that “since the coal minister has already explained and apologised, the matter should rest there”.