June 14, 2018:

Decision taken by an inter-ministerial panel on Wednesday with the in an attempt to prevent NRI husbands from abandoning their wives.

Non-resident Indian (NRI) men who wed in the country will have to compulsorily register their marriages within one week & update their marital status on their passports, the central govt. officials said. This decision by an inter-ministerial panel on Wednesday is an attempt to prevent NRI husbands abandoning their wives.

Failure to update their marital status on passports can result in the document getting revoked, 1 of 4 officials said on condition of anonymity . “The group of ministers decided that necessary amendments will have to be made in the Passport Act to incorporate the changes,” the official added.

The panel was set up in 2017 to review the legal & regulatory challenges faced by women deserted by NRI husbands. It comprises several ministers, including External affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Women and Child Development (WCD) minister Maneka Gandhi. Swaraj, Singh, Prasad & Gandhi attended a meeting of the panel on Wednesday.

The panel decided to make it compulsory for NRIs to register their marriages with the registrars. “Law ministry has agreed to incorporate the necessary clause by amending the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969,” an official said.

Presently, only a handful of states, including Punjab, which was the 1st to formulate such guidelines, make registration of NRI marriages compulsory.

After Wednesday’s meeting, the law, home & external affairs ministries were asked to come up with draft legal amendments to give effect to decisions taken at the meeting. “The amendments will then go to the cabinet for approval,” an official said.

The panel couldn't arrive at a consensus on a proposal to attach the property of NRIs who desert their wives & fail to respond to repeated summons, an official said.

“Law ministry officials present in the meeting said that the proposal to attach property is legally not tenable. Ministerial panel has directed the law ministry to revisit the proposal & suggest what could be done within 1 week,” said the fourth official.

The panel also decided to allow the ministry of external affairs to put up summons issued to NRI men who haven't responded to earlier summons on its website. Such notices are to be “deemed to have been served”.

The Union Home Ministry has already agreed to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure that'll allow notification of summons put up on the website of the Ministry of External affairs to be “deemed to have been served”.

Current Scenario 

The current practice is that once a woman lodges a complaint, the Police write to embassies, which sends a summons notice. But the problem is that such summons hardly get served as the NRI usually moves to a new place or provides an incorrect address.

The panel was set up after a drastic increase in the no. of NRI men deserting their wives after marrying them in India.

On 21st December, Minister of state for external affairs VK Singh told Parliament that Indian missions abroad received 3,328 complaints from Indian women about marital disputes with their NRI spouses since 2015. Of this, 3,268 were addressed by providing counselling to the women, and guidance & info. about procedures to address the complaints.

Complaints ranged from grooms disappearing soon after marrying women in India to husbands preventing their wives from travelling to India after seizing their passports; from husbands who abandoned their wives in another country to those who had sent their wives back home but weren't giving up the custody of their children.

In comparison, the National Commission for Women, an autonomous body under the WCD ministry, recorded 346 complaints from women married to NRIs in 2014 (the latest year for which figures are available). However, ministry officials conceded that this figure doesn't reflect the real situation because very few women come forward to lodge complaints.

“These measures are good and long overdue. But it'll only help future cases. What about the large no. of women who've already been deserted by NRI men? Is the govt thinking of some measures to help them as well? We as a society have to take care of them also,” said Arvind Kumar Goel, retired Judge & former Chairman of Punjab’s state commission for NRIs.

Picture Source :