A national helpline for women abandoned in non-resident Indian (NRI) marriages and the need for a dedicated fund to aid them were among the proposals presented during a National Commission for Women (NCW) consultation on guaranteeing access to justice for such women on Wednesday.
Experts from the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Home Affairs, women victims, state police agencies, non-governmental organizations, and Indian missions in Australia and Canada were among those invited by the NCW.
The meeting focused on two important topics: identifying difficulties experienced by Indian women married to PIOs and NRIs and obstacles faced by abandoned spouses in the Indian and international legal systems.
Ex-parte divorce judgments acquired by husbands overseas were also considered, which are already dealt with under Section 13 of the Civil Procedure Code, which deals with circumstances in which foreign judgments are not conclusive.
Ways to assure maintenance for such women, legal assistance, and financial support through a designated fund were also discussed, according to another person who attended the conference on the condition of anonymity.
A lot of the recommendations aren’t brand fresh. They were included in an expert committee report filed in August 2017 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, chaired by Justice Arvind Kumar Goel, ex-Chairperson, Punjab NRI Commission. Based on these recommendations, a meeting chaired by then-External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in November 2017 decided to make NRI weddings obligatory to register and set up an MEA website for issuing summons.
The Ministry of External Affairs submitted the Registration of Non-Resident Indian Marriage Bill 2019 in the Rajya Sabha in February 2019. The Bill was forwarded to a Parliamentary Standing Committee, which recommended that it be passed with certain changes. However, after Sushma Swaraj’s death in August 2019, the Bill was put on hold.
