NEW DELHI – An increasing number of NRI marriages may be going from honeymoon to hell but that has not stirred the government to action. The National Commission for Women (NCW) has disposed off only 3% of cases — 30 of the 813 complaints that they received — and the ministry of overseas Indian affairs (MOIA) has succeeded in providing financial assistance to only 82 of the 377 women who were in distress.
These concerns were raised by the standing committee on external affairs chaired by Ananth Kumar in report tabled in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
The report has directed government to take effective action and dedicate funds for the assistance of abandoned and deserted women caught in fraudulent marriages.
The panel has pulled up the ministry and the NCW over a series of initiatives that have been left on paper including ensuring registration of NRI marriages, signing of bilateral legal assistance agreements, relief and rehabilitation schemes for abandoned women through a single window mechanism and conducting awareness campaigns.
The committee find that in the name of complexity of the matter and involvement of international protoicol and jurisdiction issues and role of state governments, the ministries have not paid the desired attention to develop a system to support abandoned women,” the report said.
It criticized overseas Indian affairs ministry for failing to put in place a mechanism to help the victims of fraudulent marriages and said a rehabilitation scheme should be launched to help the affected women.
It also strongly recommended that the passport authorities should be asked to play a pro-active role in such cases and they should use their “discretion” under provisions of the law to impound and revoke passports of people if it was found that they do not respond to summons and cooperate with courts.
