Govt plans to rein in NRIs who abandon wives

Expert committee suggests passport cancellation of guilty men

Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who harass their wives for dowry, or abuse and desert them in a foreign land could have their passport impounded or cancelled, if the government accepts the recommendation of a highlevel panel.

The Justice Goel Committee was constituted by the ministry of external affairs (MEA) in May following mounting complaints from women who have been deserted by their NRI spouses, officials told Hindustan Times.

The panel has also recommended that cases of domestic violence should be included in the scope of extradition treaties that India enters into with other countries.

“The panel has said this will facilitate extradition of NRI spouse to India to face trial. Currently, in cases of desertion, domestic violence or dowry harassment it is next to impossible to get the man return to India to face action,” said a source.

Officials in the Union women and child development (WCD) ministry, which is coordinating with MEA to prepare a framework, said the government is likely to accept the recommendations.

“Both external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and WCD minister Maneka Gandhi have taken up the cause of Indian wives deserted by NRI men and have spoken on several public fora of the government’s intent to address the issue,” a WCD ministry source said.

The nine-member panel headed by justice (retired) Arvind Kumar Goel, former chairman of Punjab’s state commission for NRIs, has recommended special provision to impound or cancel passport of an offending NRI husband based on the complaint of his wife.

Though Section 10 (3) of the Passport Act has provision for impounding the passport of NRI husbands in case an FIR is registered or if directed by the court, it is not invoked often because of the cumbersome process involved and general lack of awareness.

The MEA had set up the panel to look into legal and regulatory challenges faced by women deserted by their NRI husbands.

The panel has also recommended increasing financial assistance provided by Indian missions to such women from $3,000 to $6,000.

The money is given to the women for availing counseling and legal services in a foreign land where she does not has much resource or contact to help her deal with the legalities, an official said.

“Once a passport is impounded, if the NRI husband is in India he can’t leave the country till such time the case is settled. If the NRI spouse is abroad, he will be deported to India,” said a source privy to the committee’s report, which was submitted to MEA last month.

Hindustan Times had in 2012 reported about Parneet Singh, the then Jalandhar regional passport officer, who had used the provision in the Passport Act to impound passports of over 60 NRI men who had abandoned their wives.

But such instances are few and far between with scores of such abandoned women forced to fend for themselves in the absence of a strong law.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) recorded 346 complaints from women married to NRIs in 2014, the latest period for which numbers are available.

WCD ministry officials say the available data do not reflect the true picture as many women don’t come forward to lodge complaint.

Complaints are mostly about men keeping custody of their wives’ passport and not allowing them to travel, leaving their wives behind in India, abandoning wives in foreign countries, forcibly keeping the child abroad and not letting the wife contact the child, etc.

In 2009, the then NCW chairperson Girija Vyas had said that “out of 10 NRI marriages, two resulted in the wife being abandoned after honeymoon”.

The panel has also recommended that till such time a central law making registration of marriage mandatory is enacted, respective states should compulsorily register all marriages, especially NRI marriages.

The panel has also said that marriage registration certificate should have a mandatory form for NRI spouse where he will have to fill in details such as his passport number, social security number, address of his home and work place, etc.

Currently, only a handful of states including Punjab compulsorily register marriages and have a form for NRI spouse in the marriage registration certificate.