Cracking down on rising cases of fraudulent marriages involving non-resident Indians (NRI), India’s Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj tabled a bill in the Indian Parliament on Monday to protect their spouses from being harmed or harassed.
The Registration of Marriage of Non-Resident Indian Bill 2019, tabled in the upper house of parliament, recommends that all marriages involving an NRI must be registered within 30 days of the date of the marriage, failing which strict penal action will be taken. The accused NRI’s property in India can also be attached.
The bill, in addition to safeguarding marriages involving NRIs, further seeks to amend the Passports Act, 1967 and Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 in order to fix penal action in the event of violation.
The government swung into action after a rising number of cases of fraudulent marriages where harassment and even deserting of Indian spouses have made news and of late. This bill is the result of a joint effort amongst the Ministry for External Affairs (MEA), Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Law and Justice.
The proposed law recommends that the registration of every marriage solemnised between an NRI and an Indian citizen, within India or outside, should be made mandatory within 30 days of the date of the marriage taking place. The registration must be done with a marriage officer appointed under within whose jurisdiction that marriage has taken place.
After being passed in parliament, this bill’s recommendations will apply to states of India except Jammu & Kashmir.
Failing this, a court will send a summons to the NRI who has not registered his/her marriage. In case the summons can’t be served to the NRI in question, it will be uploaded on a specially-designated website of the MEA and deemed to have been served.
If the summoned NRI or his/her authorised agent fails to appear before the court, a warrant can be issued against him/her, which again, will be uploaded to the same website.
After the warrant is uploaded on the ministry’s website, if the summoned NRI fails to appear before the court yet again, they can be pronounced proclaimed offender. Once this proclamation is also uploaded on the website, it shall be deemed to have been served to the accused. Hereafter, the court can also order the attachment of property of the accused.
Ms Swaraj’s office stated that this bill was necessitated by a growing number of complaints received by her, mostly from India-based women, about their NRI spouses deserting or harassing them after marriage. The bill proposes to offer greater protection to Indian women married to NRIs and serve as a deterrent to NRIs against harassment of their spouses. This would provide much needed relief to all Indian women married to NRIs worldwide, Ms Swaraj’s office added.
In 2018, it was reported in the Indian media that passports of eight NRI husbands had been cancelled and lookout notices were issued against them under the Passports Act following complaints from their spouses. This action was taken after an inter-ministerial committee comprising MEA, Ministry of Women and Child Development and Ministry of Home Affairs received 70 such complaints.
