New Delhi, November 13
Alarmed by the increasing number of NRI grooms deceiving unsuspecting girls, the Centre has mooted a joint effort with the Punjab Government to formulate a suitable law and devise an institutional mechanism for dealing with such cases both in the short and long term.
The proposals being scrutinised include the establishment of a private international law which would also fulfil the need for adequate preventive laws, setting up of courts similar to the family courts in and making the registration of marriage mandatory.
An official of the Union Ministry of Overseas Indians Affairs told The Tribune that on its part, the Centre would explore the possibility of “developing mutually-acceptable conventions of private international law to protect the interests of NRI’s brides”.
The official said such a step would prove beneficial only in the long term. “This is a long-drawn process and will take time which is why we want to take other short-term measures in partnership with the state government.”
Accordingly, the Centre wants the Punjab Government to make the registration of marriage mandatory. The groom would file an affidavit detailing his status, domicile, etc and get two eminent persons to vouchsafe for his antecedents.
Besides legal counselling to the affected persons, the Centre has suggested that courts be set up to deal exclusively and expeditiously with such cases on the pattern of the family courts that are functioning in Punjab and elsewhere in the country.
“Such measures are already being tried informally. There is now a need to institutionalise them so that such incidents do not recur, “he said, citing the instance of a senior defence personnel’s daughter who found herself in a similar situation.
“The Ministry is in regular touch with the National Commission for Women. The National Human Rights Commission is also seized of the matter. We now look to the Punjab Government to mount a joint effort to eradicate this social evil”, the official added.
Welcoming the proposals, the NRI Welfare Society of India told this newspaper that they would fulfil a longstanding demand of the people of Punjab whose daughters find themselves at the receiving end of unfamiliar laws in an alien land. The trauma of the girls taken for a ride by fraudulent NRI grooms and the fate of girls abandoned as “holiday wives” are also expected to figure in the deliberations during the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations, which will be held in Mumbai from January 7 to 9.
