Kumar Anand is doing a most incisive and rigorous analysis of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, in his book "A Boon or a Bait.". The Act, on a cursory reading, reflects on a very well-intentioned piece of legislation to provide crucial protection and support to women who are victims of domestic violence. It promises safety, empowerment, and justice for people who have borne in silence far too long. However, Anand digs much deeper beneath the surface narrative of this law, questioning if it actually serves its purpose or if it covers more disturbing facts beneath its harmless provisions. It goes into complex webs of law and societal structure surrounding the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, raising the most critical questions about its impacts. Is the Act the weapon of mass empowerment that it sets out to be, or has it, inadvertently, become a tool of further oppression?Through an in-depth analysis of relevant cases and legal frameworks, Anand probes the possible unintended consequences the very protections designed to safeguard women may be doing instead. What if the Act, rather than being a safeguard, created new burdens or exacerbated existing problems? Could it be that the interests of women are being manipulated for a larger, more obscure agenda? Instead of celebrating the successes of the law, Anand presents a powerful examination of the concealed weaknesses and contradictions within the law.His study forces us to think differently about the nature of legal systems and their capacity for good and ill. This is not a critique of a legal document; it's the broader question of how laws, even when intended for the best, can be manipulated, misused, or simply fail to deliver on their true purpose. "A Boon or a Bait" is one of those courageous, uncompromising explorations about the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act by critically raising some serious questions about the effectiveness of that Act. That is why this book is not seeking to hagiographize a law but intends to strip and unscramble what remains underneath it by offering an amazing story on how laws can act either as liberation forces or crushing tools, based on their carefully thought and considered nature as well as critically estimated and criticised process.