The Centre is in the process of strengthening the legal framework to prosecute the absconding NRIs who abandon their wives which will include confiscation of property owned by them or their relatives.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday said the government will enact a law during the next session of Parliament, if not during the current session to beef up the legal provisions.
Other measures which will be incorporated in the proposed law include posting the court warrants and summons on a website being developed by the ministry against the accused NRIs.
They will be deemed as served, and legal action proceeded accordingly against the person.
Those who will not respond to the warrants and summon will be considered a proclaimed offender leading to seizure of his or his relatives properties, said Swaraj, while inaugurating a day-long National Seminar on “NRI marriages and trafficking of women and children jointly organised by MEA and Maharashtra State Commission for Women.
The law will ensure that deserter husband is penalised, Swaraj said.
“We will not only cancel his passport but also confiscate his property. And if he doesn’t return, his property could be sold to give financial aid to his aggrieved wife. We will have to make some amendments in the Code of Criminal Procedure…We are already in talks with Law and Union Home Ministry and all efforts are being make to ensure that a law is in place by the end of this year,” she added.
Till the time the new law is in place a committee consisting of personnel of MEA, Women and Child Development (WCD) and Law Ministry and Home Affairs under the nodal authority of WCD had been constituted to look into complaints against NRIs in abandoning and physical abuse of their wives.
The MEA has been continuously receiving complaints about NRIs in the matter. In Punjab alone, there are over 15,000 women who are affected with this menace.
Attributing the practice to be a fad among youngsters and their parents to settle abroad, she said: “In last three years, the ministry has received 3,328 complaints from Indian women who have been deserted by their NRI husbands.
“We are acting tough on such cases. For a start, the passports of eight NRI men accused of abandoning their wives have been cancelled. The accused whose passports were revoked have surrendered,” Swaraj added.
A top official of the MEA told that MEA and the Law Ministry, WCD and Home Affairs have agreed in principle to strengthen the legal framework.
Addressing the conference, WCD minister Maneka Gandhi said the need for strengthening the legal framework is on account of NRIs not responding to justice system, and often furnishing fake addresses to avoid court summons and warrants.
