Bangalore gets 25 divorce cases daily

Bangalore gets 25 divorce cases daily

Marriage to a successful techie, beginning a new life in a new city it seemed like a beautiful dream for Poonam Nath (name changed). But within a year, everything turned bitter and the couple separated. Poonam is not alone. The city sees an average of 25 divorce cases filed every day.

According to a recent survey by the Children's Rights Initiative For Shared Parenting (CRISP), around 13,000 cases of divorce are pending in various family courts in Bangalore. Of these 5,000 were filed in 2008.

"Now, I am staying alone and have managed to get a job in a BPO," said Poonam (23), who is from Kolkata.

"On an average, divorce cases take three to four years to get disposed of in Bangalore," said Kumar Jahgirdar, president of CRISP.

Lawyer Bhavana P said, "Cases get disposed of easily if couples opt for divorce by mutual consent. Some cases are pending because as per matrimonial law a year is given for reconciliation."

Experts vary on the reasons for the rise in divorce rate in Bangalore.

"There are reasons galore for the rise in divorce cases. Urbanisation and increasing violence against women and financial stability of both husband and wife, to name a few," said Dona Fernandes, a member of women rights' group Vimochana.
"Today's empowered women are refusing to follow the traditional diktats of Indian marriages. Marriage is the biggest form of displacement for any woman as she has to shift from her home (natural habitat) to her husband's home.
"It is the wife who is supposed to adjust. But today's financially strong women are not ready to take undue pressure on their individual existence and thus marital discords are bound to increase," said Fernandes.
Echoing the view, marriage counsellor Sujit Kumar says that financial stability is a major cause of rise in divorces.
"The couples do not try to work out the marriage as they are confident they can lead a life independently as both are financially stable," he said.
Psychiatrists are of the view that with stress and long working hours with little time for each other, couples drift apart and end up being separated.
Sanjanthi Sajan, who runs a firm that handles several such cases, says at her firm the basic idea is to stop couples going to court.
"We have counsellors who talk to couples to avoid going for a divorce," said Sajan.
Vishwanath B.N., a city-based advocate who handles divorce cases, says that today's couples do not try to reconcile and are in a hurry to end the marriage.
"There is very little that can be done to save the marriage after it comes to court," he said.

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2009/jul/230709-Bangalore-news-25-divorces-daily-cases-techie-couples.htm