A nine-member panel headed by retired judge Arvind Kumar Goel which was formed to help abandoned women get justice in India recently proposed measures which include impounding passports and confiscation of property, to reign in Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who abandon their wives.
The ministerial panel was set up in 2017 to review the legal and regulatory challenges faced by abandoned women and includes India's external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi; Nitin Gadkari, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Narendra Singh Tomar and VK Singh.
The committee recently recommended a special provision to impound or cancel the passport of offending NRIs based on the wife’s complaint, as well as seizing their properties in India.
Source: Public Domain
They also proposed posting summons on a website after NRI men fail to respond to the one sent to their address. Such notices were to be treated as “deemed to have been served”.
'Legally untenable'
However, India's Law Ministry has shot down the measures, saying 'they are legally untenable', the Hindustan Times has reported.
Following this, Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi has written to India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to call another meeting to end the deadlock that threatens to derail the move to help abandoned wives.
Australia-based Akashika Mohla who has been working closely with women abandoned by their NRI husbands in Australia has urged the Indian government to act sooner than later.
She says the situation is getting worse for abandoned wives and the new measures should not be delayed.
“The recently proposed measures have hit a roadblock but we must understand it has taken very long to reach here.
“The situation is getting bleaker by the day for hundreds of women who are undergoing this trauma.
“While the government is trying to overall manage the risks and potential abuse of such law, we must act sooner and respond to their needs,” she says.
Complaint 'every eight hours'
The issue of abandoned wives in India has become critical over the past few years.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) recently told the Indian Parliament that they receive a complaint from an NRI woman every eight hours.
3,328 complaints were received in 1,064 days between January 2015 and November 2017 from wives of NRIs while 496 cases were registered with the Indian government with varying degrees of complexity during 2016-17.
For help or information regarding domestic violence, call the Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800 737 732, or visit 1800respect.org.au
