The registration of marriages for NRIs is regulated under the Non-Resident Indian Bill, 2019 which was introduced in Rajya Sabha on 11 February 2019. Every NRI who marries an Indian citizen or other NRI must register the marriage within 30 days of the ceremony. If the NRI fails to do so, the passport authority is authorized to impound his passport which could lead to deportation or loss of employment abroad. If the NRI gets married outside India, it must be registered with a marriage officer appointed among the diplomatic officers in a foreign country.
The bill added a provision to the code of civil procedure, 1973, which says that if the summons is not served to the concerned NRI it should be served by uploading it on a designated website. If the person does not appear before the court even after being summoned the warrant of arrest might be uploaded on the website. Even after this, the individual does not appear before the court, it may issue a written statement of the said upload. This statement will be the evidence of a warrant being issued and served. Also, the court has the power to order the attachment of the property of the offender.
The bill does not provide any extension of time to the NRI if he fails to register the marriage within 30 days period. Various states have enacted laws for compulsory registration of marriage but few states like Karnataka and Gujarat provide the flexibility of late registration upon payment of late fees as they offer 30 days limit for registration.
In the bill, the NRI is defined as a person who resides outside India but does not specify the minimum number of days abroad to qualify as an NRI like all other laws. That is why it looks unclear as to who the bill actually applies to as Income Tax Act 1961, the Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 and Aadhar card Act 2016 define NRIs as persons who have been outside India for more than 183 days.
Integrated Nodal Agency (INA), headed by the Ministry of Girls and Child Development and include senior officials from the Ministry of External Affairs, Home Affairs, Law and Justice and Women and Child Development, was instituted to put a full stop to the increasing number of frauds in NRI marriages and administer the marriages efficiently by introducing the Non-Resident Indian Bill.
Problems Regarding NRI marriages:
- The Women get abandoned after marriage before being taken abroad by their husbands
- Women when taken abroad by their husbands get ill-treated and are forced to escape the marriage and forcibly sent back home
- Without a visa, women cannot travel abroad and gets stuck in the country while husband flies out of the country with the huge dowry given in marriage
- Brides do not see their husbands after the ritual of honeymoon. More than 20,000 women have been victims of this pattern
- Husband has already been married in the foreign country
- Husband gives false information of job in a foreign land and other particulars
- Due to technical issues like jurisdiction and differences in-laws of the land, divorce procedures take long and are not fruitful, making the condition of women miserable even after seeking justice for fraudulent NRI marriages
