Old stories, new endings

Aditi Tandon in New Delhi 

Traumatic stories of women deserted by NRI husbands are finally seeing some closure. Through 2018, the government has revoked passports of seven men who married local girls only to dump them later. In the process, these men ended up making quick bucks by raising dowry demands on the families of Indian women, who were eventually left alone to fend for themselves and their children.

Of the revoked passports, five belong to husbands of women from Punjab, which forms the bulk of NRI desertion cases in India. The state women’s commission receives an average of 300 complaints annually in this regard.

While women accusing NRI husbands of abandonment, abuse and forgery is an old story told through decades, what’s new is the manner in which the government is responding to the challenge.

The revocation of passports, for instance, is the first in the history of women’s struggle for their rights in abusive NRI marriages. The move follows consensus among government ministries that strong deterrents will have to be created to tackle the growing problem. The proposal to revoke passports of NRI men who continue to refuse court summons from Indian wives came last year from a nine-member committee which the Ministry of External Affairs had set up to suggest measures to stem the rot. Headed by Justice Arvind Kumar Goel (retd), former chairperson of the Punjab Commission for Women, the panel made radical recommendations to address the plight of deserted women.

Among these was the grant of power to the Passport Officer to impound travel documents of the NRI in conflict with the Indian law. Justice Goel at that time suggested that an NRI husband who declines Indian court summons repeatedly and has been declared a proclaimed offender at home should not be allowed to escape. “Travel documents of such an NRI should be impounded and the local SSP or magistrate be given the power to issue look out notices against such accused to prevent him from leaving India. If the accused is abroad, his passport should be impounded to ensure he doesn’t escape the law any further,” the committee said.

Since the submission of these suggestions, the government has set up an Inter Ministerial Nodal Agency (IMNA) to deal with cases of wife desertions by NRIs and recommend revocation of passports to the MEA in appropriate cases. The agency is headed by Secretary, Women and Child Development (WCD) and has representatives of the ministries of External Affairs and Home to fast track justice. This is the first time a coordinated body has been formed to help hapless women who would have to deal with several wings of the government in their search for justice.

“The agency began working this January. We looked at the complaints from women and recommended revocation of passports in seven cases. Most of these cases belong to Punjab. The agency has been legally empowered to issue lookout notices in fit cases. The idea is to ensure accused NRIs don’t escape the country if they are here and don’t shift locations if they are abroad,” WCD secretary Rakesh Srivastav says. “Lookout notices however can only be issued in fit cases,” he adds.

The agency has 36 pending complaints with only seven qualifying for passport revocation. So which cases are “fit” for the agency to ask the MEA to revoke passports?

“For us to issue a lookout notice and recommend revoking passport of an NRI, he should either have been issued summons by an Indian court or should be facing a cognisable IPC offence such as dowry harassment, domestic abuse and other offences of serious nature,” Srivastav said.

This is only the beginning of government’s efforts to rein in rampant desertions by NRIs. The Ministry of External Affairs is currently working on amendments to the Passports Act to enable revocation of passports of NRIs who fail to register their marriages in India within seven days of solemnisation. Family law and legal experts also agree that the final solution to the problem of NRI men dumping Indian women is mandatory marriage registration to ensure women have evidence of matrimony. This will strengthen their claim in cases of child custody and settlements later.

“To mandate marriage registrations, the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, will also need amendments. Under this law, a marriage to be legal has to be solemnised in accordance with customs. Lack of registration does not invalidate a marriage under this law,” family law expert Anil Malhotra says.

It is learnt that the MEA may soon move for Union Cabinet permission to amend the Passports Act to enable the above provisions. On the other side, the Ministry of Home is mulling amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure to provide for mechanisms to fast track court cases against absconding NRI husbands.

Legal provisions are further being proposed to confiscate domestic property of absconding NRIs to force them to return and face the Indian law.

“Current trends are very disturbing. We see cases where NRIs marry Indian women, accumulate dowry, and leave the country never to return. The woman has nowhere to go. There is a proposal to amend the section of the CrPC that deals with service of summons,” says the WCD secretary.

The proposal is if an absconding NRI fails to answer Indian court summons, a copy of these summons will be displayed twice on website of the MEA to afford time to the accused to return.

If he fails, summons would be deemed to have been served. Parallel to this, passport revocation provisions will also apply to bring the accused NRI husband to justice.

WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi, who led the efforts in this regards, says women must continue reporting crimes by NRI husbands and they should be rest assured that the government cares.

“We are committed to bringing the absconding NRI husbands to justice and securing the legal rights of Indian women and their children,” Gandhi says.

In another move, the government is proposing that the local property of the NRI absconder be confiscated till the time he returns to serve court summons in India in pending cases against him. “Families of NRI men always know where they are. Once properties start getting confiscated upon refusal of an NRI to honour summons from Indian courts, they are bound to feel pressured to return,” says a proposal under government’s active consideration.