Bill unfair on men

The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010, which was recently passed by the Rajya Sabha is inegalitarian and regressive. If passed by the Lok Sabha, it would be draconian as it would be oppressive for men.
If it is passed into law, it should be struck down under Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality to both men and women.
The proposed law is certainly gender-biased. There is no rationale whatsoever why the law should benefit women, and not men. It is absurd that in cases of “irretrievable breakdown” of marriage, half the self-acquired property of the husband can be claimed by the woman. It would be sensible to make changes in the proposed law so that only matrimonial property is divided, that is, the property acquired during the course of the marriage.
In most developed countries, the laws concerning divorce say that only the property acquired by the husband during the course of the marriage can be claimed by the wife.
In today’s time, there are marriages that last only a few weeks and at times a few days. In those cases it wouldn’t be fair to give half of the self-acquired property of the man to the wife.
This law would lead to fraud marriages. It will spoil the fabric of marriage. Men will become suspicious of women; a man would think the prospective wife is only after his property and will divorce him soon. This could encourage men to stay away from wedlock and get into live-in relations, which in India are covered under the law on domestic violence, but are not considered equivalent to marriage. This will create further problems for women.
Statistics suggest that more women are defrauded than men. In such cases, maintenance to the distressed woman should be sufficient and the proposed law should be changed accordingly. It doesn’t make sense to give maintenance to the woman if a marriage lasts just a few weeks.
In cases where a woman leaves her husband for another man and the children remain with the father, it would be really illogical to give the man’s property or even maintenance to her. If a woman is a housewife and the husband has been earning, she should rightly be entitled to the property acquired by them/him during the course of the marriage.
It will, however, be unfair if she gets the property acquired by the husband before the marriage or inherited by him. If passed, the new law will spoil the fabric of marriage.
This Bill says that though the courts will keep in mind the husband’s inherited property while deciding compensation amount, especially if children are involved, the share in the husband’s inherited property will not be given to the wife in case of divorce.
Why would the court not treat the wife’s property with the same yardstick? Would an aggrieved husband be entitled to the self-acquired property of his wife? This law is not gender neutral. By bringing these amendments, the government thinks that it is doing service to the pro-woman sentiment. But no one seems to have thought about the law. It needs to have some rationale behind it.
Geeta Luthra is a senior advocate (As told to Ridhima Malhotra)

http://www.asianage.com/ideas/bill-unfair-men-585#comment-47450 

Marriage law amendment bill 2010 and the Murder of Democracy

26th August 2013 is a day that will live in infamy for Indian democracy when the country witnessed the broad daylight murder of democracy and principles of natural justice on the very floors of Indian Parliament. This is the day when the proposed Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill 2010 was cleared by the Rajya Sabha even after the opposition from men’s rights groups and some members of the House. The shocking aspect of the whole debate was the Minister of Law and justice Shri Kapil SIbal made statements in support of this law, which were grossly misleading and downright incorrect. The minister in his desire to get this law passed was generous with misleading statements and very economical with the truth.
The ground reality &repercussions of the law are severe on husbands and their families.
1. Husbands will lose their hard-earned property (self-acquired, inherited or inheritable) if their marriage breaks.
2. Husbands will still face other false cases under Section 498A, Domestic Violence Act, Section 125 CrPC, etc. and get extorted further.
3. Husbands will lose your children to their estranged wife who will poison them against you and the Govt. would aid her in doing so.
4. Husbands will become bankrupt if their wife decides to leave you or you are unhappy in the marriage.
5. Husbands would have no right to appeal as now your extortion is codified in the law and power has been wrested with the insensitive and anti-male Indian judiciary.
The Govt. chose to brush aide the aforementioned concerns of men’s welfare groups giving a clear message that the Govt. in India is not interested to work in men’s favor to even an iota’s extent. It’s up to the men now to realize as to whether they should vote for such political parties or even pay tax to such a Govt.
Some of  the arguments that were used by Honourable Minister of Law and Justice, Shri Kapil Sibal to help build a case for this law were grossly misleading and totally inaccurate . His statements and our counters are as below.
1. India is a patriarchal society; hence laws must be pro-women.

This is a big myth which is conveniently used to pass any anti-male law. If the society was indeed patriarchal, then in that case, the laws would have protected a man’s right. Why would a patriarchal society even bother about women and pass so many anti-male laws just to appease women? Actually Indian society has never been patriarchal. Life has always been tougher for men compared to women. Men have always been expected to take more pains and make more sacrifices compared to women and when men try to speak about their rights, their own fellow men work against them and suppress them. It is just a convenient argument to support anti-male laws so that men can be continuously harassed and tortured in order to make them work for the betterment of the society.
2. World over 2% of assets are owned by women, so since 98% of property is owned by 50% of the population i.e. men, hence women must get free property at the cost of men.

This is another grossly incorrect statement propagated by feminists and is not true because till date no authentic data source has been traced to, which scientifically proves the contention and it’s virtually impossible to do so as no one has access to this level of global data. And any amount of sample study done won’t suffice because no statistical model can simulate data for the entire globe with dynamics so varying and so complex. Secondly, even if we hypothetically assume that the contention is true, even then, men own those assets by sheer virtue of their grit, determination and hard work. No law was ever framed to have men a free run on properties by virtue of their relationship status that would enrich themselves. Then, why do we want to enrich women by robbing things off men? And such a mathematically weak argument coming from an eminent lawyer and a graduate from Harvard Law School is equally shamming for India.
3. This law is gender-neutral as both husband and wife can apply for divorce.
This a grossly misleading and untrue statement When it comes to property division, only husband’s property will be considered and even if wife owns property she can keep it, while claim a share in husband’s property.
4. We are only considering post-marital property but will take into account inherited and inheritable property.
This is a big grossly misleading statement. SIFF has seen the draft of the bill, which clearly mentions that any property owned by the husband at the time of divorce, whether it is inherited, inheritable or self-acquired, shall be considered for division. However, our learned law minster chose to mislead and said we are talking of only post marital property, however, inherited and inheritable property shall be taken into account while deciding the case. Does this mean this was deliberate attempt at misleading the members of the parliament to get this bill passed ?
Money and Property Transactions in Courts will lead to massive corruption and extortion. Lawyers have something to be happy about this IRBM law. But, the common man will suffer very badly. We have to wake up to the new reality that most men are losing faith on Indian Family court system and judiciary.
Leaving the whole issue to Judiciary is not good idea. There may be some good judges, but that does not mean enoromous powers and distrition of wresting someone’s property be vested with lower judiciary. Most poor people will lose their property running around courts for years and paying lawyer fees.
We will see lawyers welcoming laws that give more and more power to law enforcement systems, because they are bound to gain a lot from people’s misery. When Govt planned to amend Criminal Procedure Code to reduce arrests under 498a to stop its misuse, lawyers protested against this move claiming they will not be able to make big money from bail fees from men and their families.
Rajya Sabha member Pyarimohan Mahapatra said during that debate that according to Transparency International 36% of Indian Judiciary is corrupt. Now, the same corrupt Judiciary will decide how to divide the property of husband and his parents to give to  the wife.
Law Minister Kapil Sibal has nothing to say about forcing parents to give a share of their property to daughters, when people are not following this law. Yet, he is interested in giving someone’s property to daughter-in-law, if she decides get divorced for their son. In fact, their son can not even oppose the divorce, that she files.
Kapil Sibal has made the women’s empowerment into a zero sum win lose game. He believes if women have to gain, men have to lose badly. This will not auger well for Indian society on a long run.
We hereby most respectfully demand that the marriage law amendment bill not be introduced in Loksabha in this form and that he Honourable Minister of Law and justice call for an open debate on the pros and cons of this law and clarify the reasons why he chose to be generous with misleading statements and so economical with the truth.

http://www.theindiapost.com/articles/marriage-law-amendment-bill-2010-murder-democracy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theindiapost%2FwkLb+%28The+India+Post%29 

Marriage Amendment Bill - Draconian Law

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzVwu1oBXM

Bill without benefits

The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill is aimed at addressing two different concerns — making divorce easy and protecting the economic rights of women, but succeeds in doing neither

Though the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010, passed by the Rajya Sabha last week, granting some women a limited right in their husband’s property, is a step in the right direction, it falls short of expectations. The right has been extended only to Hindu women and those who marry under the Special Marriage Act and whose husbands have filed for divorce on the ground of marriage breakdown. What was needed was a separate statute (like the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act) to protect the economic rights of all married women and not just of a privileged few, and that too through convoluted clauses.
The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill is aimed at addressing two different concerns — making divorce easy and protecting the economic rights of women, but succeeds in doing neither. To waive the statutory six month “cooling period” for securing a divorce by mutual consent, when both parties desire it due to hardships caused to them, one did not need a major law reform. The family courts across the country were routinely doing this in cases where the parties made a joint application explaining the hardship. In 2002, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the Anjana Kishore vs Puneet Kishore case had directed the courts to do away with this provision. The higher judiciary was also granting divorce on the ground of breakdown of marriage in specific cases of protracted litigation. In 1995, in the Romesh Chander vs Savitri case, the Supreme Court, while upholding the principle of marriage breakdown, had directed the husband to transfer the matrimonial home to the wife’s name at the time of divorce.
Even while puncturing holes in the bill, one must admit that it is an improved version of the earlier bill introduced unceremoniously in the Rajya Sabha in August 2010 and later referred to the Joint Select Committee. The urgency for the 2010 bill was to rectify the harmful precedent set by a ruling of the Supreme Court which concerned the daughter of Sushil Kumar Shinde, the Union home minister. The Supreme Court had, in 2009, upheld the ruling of the Bombay high court which had set aside an irregular divorce granted by the family court of Mumbai under rather peculiar circumstances, disregarding the provisions of law. So a bill was hastily introduced, touted as a “women friendly” bill as it would make divorce easy for women despite the fact that it did not make any financial provisions to safeguard their rights. Not surprisingly, the bill received the support of men’s rights groups, which, in itself, ought to have been a warning signal.
Proverbially, one swallow does not a summer make. The need to obtain a quick divorce and “move on in life” is a luxury enjoyed by only a microscopic minority of women who are independent with sufficient means or family backing. For the rest, marriage is an economic partnership, and its dissolution, especially one that disregards their non-monetary contribution to the household in the form of unpaid labour, deprives them of their shelter and sustenance, rendering them destitute. In fact, most women approach the courts for maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code when they are abandoned by their husbands. When orders are passed in their favour, the husbands file divorce proceedings to spite them. But under the present system, the husband has to prove cruelty or desertion, which even in the hands of the most astute lawyers is not easy. It is at this stage that the woman gets an opportunity to negotiate for her economic rights and a husband, eager to obtain a divorce, may be willing to negotiate a lump sum financial settlement. But if divorce becomes a certainty, women will be deprived of this negotiating power and the state would then have to step in and make a statutory provision to make their lives financially secure.
Rather unfortunately, this dire need to protect women was overlooked by the various law commissions while recommending the introduction of irretrievable breakdown of marriage within the Indian context, though all countries which they mention in support of their recommendations have a property division clause attached to the breakdown clause. The first official mention of this provision is found only in the Report of the Joint Select Committee submitted to the Rajya Sabha in March 2011, after several women’s groups made written and oral depositions before it.
But the present bill has several provisions which are counterproductive. It stipulates that if a petition for divorce is pending before a court for over three years, the courts have the power to dissolve the marriage. But the provision to keep a petition pending for three years is not available in law as it lapses at the end of 18 months. Soon after a petition lapses, the party desiring divorce can file on the ground of marriage breakdown without having to wait for a further period of one-and-a-half years.
Second, even for obtaining divorce on “no fault ground”, evidence would have to be led to prove the three years separation. To make matters worse, it allows a period of not more than three months of cohabitation in between. Third, in order to avail of the provision of property division, the wife would have to file a separate “petition” rather than a simple “interim application”.
And the most contentious issue — adequate provision to remedy the hardship caused to the wife, would need lengthy and elaborate trial. If the couple could reach a consensus, they would have opted for a divorce by mutual consent. The fact that it has reached a stage of invoking the ground of breakdown of marriage is a sure sign that it will lead to protracted litigation. The courts would then have to determine what is “self acquired”, what is ancestral and the notional value of “heritable” property as compared to other heirs and use the living standard criteria to ascertain undisclosed wealth — all this is a nightmare for any trial court judge.
It would have been simpler to declare that all property acquired by husband at the time of marriage or in the course of marriage be deemed as “joint property” to be divided at the time of divorce, with an additional clause to secure the wife’s rights in the matrimonial residence, as is done in Britain and other Commonwealth countries. This simple solution, along with a state scheme to prevent destitution of all abandoned women whose husbands do not own property, nor have any means of livelihood, would have been beneficial.
The writer is a women’s rights lawyer
 

http://www.asianage.com/columnists/bill-without-benefits-043 

AAM LOG -Talaq aur kanoon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7hh5U6PcOA&list=HL1378296365&feature=mh_lolz

Marriage law amendment bill 2010 and the Murder of Democracy

26th August 2013 is a day that will live in infamy for Indian democracy when the country witnessed the broad daylight murder of democracy and principles of natural justice on the very floors of Indian Parliament. This is the day when the proposed Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill 2010 was cleared by the Rajya Sabha even after the opposition from men’s rights groups and some members of the House. The shocking aspect of the whole debate was the Minister of Law and justice Shri Kapil SIbal made statements in support of this law, which were grossly misleading and downright incorrect. The minister in his desire to get this law passed was generous with misleading statements and very economical with the truth.
The ground reality &repercussions of the law are severe on husbands and their families.
1. Husbands will lose their hard-earned property (self-acquired, inherited or inheritable) if their marriage breaks.
2. Husbands will still face other false cases under Section 498A, Domestic Violence Act, Section 125 CrPC, etc. and get extorted further.
3. Husbands will lose your children to their estranged wife who will poison them against you and the Govt. would aid her in doing so.
4. Husbands will become bankrupt if their wife decides to leave you or you are unhappy in the marriage.
5. Husbands would have no right to appeal as now your extortion is codified in the law and power has been wrested with the insensitive and anti-male Indian judiciary.
The Govt. chose to brush aide the aforementioned concerns of men’s welfare groups giving a clear message that the Govt. in India is not interested to work in men’s favor to even an iota’s extent. It’s up to the men now to realize as to whether they should vote for such political parties or even pay tax to such a Govt.
Some of  the arguments that were used by Honourable Minister of Law and Justice, Shri Kapil Sibal to help build a case for this law were grossly misleading and totally inaccurate . His statements and our counters are as below.
1. India is a patriarchal society; hence laws must be pro-women.

This is a big myth which is conveniently used to pass any anti-male law. If the society was indeed patriarchal, then in that case, the laws would have protected a man’s right. Why would a patriarchal society even bother about women and pass so many anti-male laws just to appease women? Actually Indian society has never been patriarchal. Life has always been tougher for men compared to women. Men have always been expected to take more pains and make more sacrifices compared to women and when men try to speak about their rights, their own fellow men work against them and suppress them. It is just a convenient argument to support anti-male laws so that men can be continuously harassed and tortured in order to make them work for the betterment of the society.
2. World over 2% of assets are owned by women, so since 98% of property is owned by 50% of the population i.e. men, hence women must get free property at the cost of men.

This is another grossly incorrect statement propagated by feminists and is not true because till date no authentic data source has been traced to, which scientifically proves the contention and it’s virtually impossible to do so as no one has access to this level of global data. And any amount of sample study done won’t suffice because no statistical model can simulate data for the entire globe with dynamics so varying and so complex. Secondly, even if we hypothetically assume that the contention is true, even then, men own those assets by sheer virtue of their grit, determination and hard work. No law was ever framed to have men a free run on properties by virtue of their relationship status that would enrich themselves. Then, why do we want to enrich women by robbing things off men? And such a mathematically weak argument coming from an eminent lawyer and a graduate from Harvard Law School is equally shamming for India.
3. This law is gender-neutral as both husband and wife can apply for divorce.
This a grossly misleading and untrue statement When it comes to property division, only husband’s property will be considered and even if wife owns property she can keep it, while claim a share in husband’s property.
4. We are only considering post-marital property but will take into account inherited and inheritable property.
This is a big grossly misleading statement. SIFF has seen the draft of the bill, which clearly mentions that any property owned by the husband at the time of divorce, whether it is inherited, inheritable or self-acquired, shall be considered for division. However, our learned law minster chose to mislead and said we are talking of only post marital property, however, inherited and inheritable property shall be taken into account while deciding the case. Does this mean this was deliberate attempt at misleading the members of the parliament to get this bill passed ?
Money and Property Transactions in Courts will lead to massive corruption and extortion. Lawyers have something to be happy about this IRBM law. But, the common man will suffer very badly. We have to wake up to the new reality that most men are losing faith on Indian Family court system and judiciary.
Leaving the whole issue to Judiciary is not good idea. There may be some good judges, but that does not mean enoromous powers and distrition of wresting someone’s property be vested with lower judiciary. Most poor people will lose their property running around courts for years and paying lawyer fees.
We will see lawyers welcoming laws that give more and more power to law enforcement systems, because they are bound to gain a lot from people’s misery. When Govt planned to amend Criminal Procedure Code to reduce arrests under 498a to stop its misuse, lawyers protested against this move claiming they will not be able to make big money from bail fees from men and their families.
Rajya Sabha member Pyarimohan Mahapatra said during that debate that according to Transparency International 36% of Indian Judiciary is corrupt. Now, the same corrupt Judiciary will decide how to divide the property of husband and his parents to give to  the wife.
Law Minister Kapil Sibal has nothing to say about forcing parents to give a share of their property to daughters, when people are not following this law. Yet, he is interested in giving someone’s property to daughter-in-law, if she decides get divorced for their son. In fact, their son can not even oppose the divorce, that she files.
Kapil Sibal has made the women’s empowerment into a zero sum win lose game. He believes if women have to gain, men have to lose badly. This will not auger well for Indian society on a long run.
We hereby most respectfully demand that the marriage law amendment bill not be introduced in Loksabha in this form and that he Honourable Minister of Law and justice call for an open debate on the pros and cons of this law and clarify the reasons why he chose to be generous with misleading statements and so economical with the truth.

http://www.theindiapost.com/articles/marriage-law-amendment-bill-2010-murder-democracy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theindiapost%2FwkLb+%28The+India+Post%29 

SIFF oppose marriage law amendment Bill

http://www.ehitavada.com/news.detail/paper_type/13/news_id/267574/date/2013-09-03

Protests against IrBM - Draconian laws

 

A house divided

On compensation, the new Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill must be fine tuned
On August 26, the Rajya Sabha passed the Marriages Law (Amendment) Bill to facilitate divorce among Hindus. It will now go to the Lok Sabha. The bill promises easier divorce, but on compensation for the wife, it fails to take account of important complexities.
The bill allows divorce on grounds of irretrievable breakdown, provided the spouses have lived separately for at least three years and their differences are irreconcilable. Divorce can be granted not only on a joint petition by both spouses but also on a single party petition. The bill thus allows people trapped in unhappy marriages to part without years of litigation. There have been cases that have dragged on for over 15 years because one party refuses to cooperate.
For many years, easy divorce was opposed by both conservatives and liberals. The former argued that it would erode a key social institution, and the latter argued that it would harm women, since men would walk out of marriages and wives would have nowhere to go. The latter argument is given weight in the bill — it includes compensation in the form of a share in some types of the man's property. The court can also deny divorce to the man if the woman proves she will face dire financial hardship. While easier divorce is better for both parties, compared with an unhappy or violent marriage, on compensation, the bill has several anomalies.
It allows the court, on the wife's petition, to order the husband to make compensation "which shall include a share in his share of the immovable property (other than inherited or inheritable immovable property) and such amount by way of share in movable property, if any, towards the settlement of her claim, as the court may deem just and equitable, and while determining such compensation the court shall take into account the value of inherited or inheritable property of the husband." (Section 28D)
This means that in immovable property (say land or house), the wife has no claims in the part that is inherited or "inheritable", but she can get a share of that which is self-acquired or received as a gift. Moreover, the court, while fixing compensation, will take into account the value of all of the man's property, including that which is inherited or inheritable.
Globally, laws relating to property division on divorce are diverse and context specific. This bill ignores many complexities of the Indian context and fails to protect various categories of women. First, in protecting the interests of the divorced wife, the bill can undercut those of the man's female relatives. For instance, in his self-acquired land, the mother and daughter, as Class I heirs, have claims intestate (that is, if he leaves no will). A compensatory share for the divorced wife will diminish the shares of these female heirs. Moreover their property rights are established by Hindu inheritance law and not subject to
a judge's discretion. The bill takes no cognisance of this.
The dilemma — that a law which gives a divorced wife a share in a man's immovable property can disadvantage his female heirs — has no easy solution. An important principle in giving a divorced wife
a share of a man's property lies in recognising that she contributes substantial labour (usually unpaid) to family upkeep. Hence, she helps build the home's assets even when not contributing financially. But a mother and adult daughter living in the household may also provide unpaid labour for family upkeep, so their claims to the man's assets on these grounds are similar. One possible way forward is to make only property acquired after marriage subject to consideration on divorce, as many countries do.
Second, it is unclear what the bill means by a man's "inheritable" property. Is it property he can inherit or property his heirs can inherit from him? Under Hindu inheritance law, all property is subject to the right to will, including a man's notional share in joint family property. And it cannot be predicted whom a will may favour. If by "inheritable" property, the bill means the husband's share in joint family property it needs to state this.
Third, the bill ignores the duration of marriage. Some regions consider marriages of three years (New Zealand) or five years (Ontario) as short-duration and restrict property shares in such cases.
Fourth, the bill is silent on the woman's economic situation unless she faces financial hardship. This is inadequate. On the one hand, where women are well off, the financial means of both spouses should be considered in determining compensation. On the other hand, the bill must also recognise that many households own little property. This is where real economic hardship lies. My work on domestic violence shows that its incidence is much higher in households with no property, or where the woman herself owns none. She thus has no exit option from a violent marriage. Here, the state needs to provide not only effective legal aid to cover divorce proceedings, but also compensation (including subsidised housing) for women with few means, if the husband is financially unable to compensate.
The writer is professor of development economics and environment, University of Manchester,and author of

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-house-divided/1163180/0 

For equal laws

THE need for progressive reform in laws in general and in laws relating to women in particular has been on the agenda of women’s groups and organisations for long. In the past three decades, major amendments have been pushed through in existing laws and new laws for women, such as the Protection of Women Against Domestic Violence Act, 2005, have also emerged. At the same time, in the area of family and personal laws, it is an acknowledged fact that none of them gives women the right to marital property.
While women’s groups underpin their understanding of reform and change in the framework of more equality, others view reform from the narrow prism of imposing a uniform approach that apparently stems from sectarian and conservative motives. The central and overriding concern of women’s organisations such as the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) was the question of equality, said Kirti Singh, senior advocate in the Supreme Court, and this included equality within their communities. In her experience, women’s groups, including AIDWA, have had to encounter resistance from multiple levels of patriarchy across communities.
The demand for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) by certain political parties was rooted in the need for equality as seen from a certain standpoint. The approach to the UCC, said Kirti Singh, began getting defined in very difficult, unequal and political terms by parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which seemed to suggest that Hindu laws were the ideal laws and that all other laws in some sense should be like Hindu laws. Both the BJP and the Congress had opportunistic views, one in support of the UCC and the other in opposition to it, with an eye on votes.
“We distanced ourselves from these groups, the BJP’s position on the UCC as well as from sections within the Muslim communities who were against any reform from within and wrongly argued that it was against the tenets of their religion. We emphasised that we wanted equality within different communities and the ending of discrimination against women within the family too,” she said.
The experience of women’s groups during the Shah Bano agitation showed that women within the Muslim community were also keen for reform of the law, which patriarchal elements within the community opposed in the name of religion. In the 1990s, several Muslim reform groups began advocating reform within Muslim Personal Law, and Kirti Singh said women’s groups, including AIDWA, pushed for a two-pronged strategy to bring about common, equal laws in areas such as matrimonial property and registration of marriages. It became apparent that the sections opposing reform within religions also articulated from time to time a narrow and biased interpretation of religion as well.

http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/for-equal-laws/article5037793.ece 

'Amended Marriage Laws Bill 2010 will harm interest of husbands'

NAGPUR: Not happy with Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill 2010 tabled in Parliament on August 26, men's rights activist Rajesh Vakharia of 'Save Indian Family Foundation', Nagpur chapter, says that the law is against the principles of natural justice. "Statements in support of this law were grossly misleading and downright incorrect," says Vakharia.

He feels that only lawyers will welcome such a law which gives power to law enforcement systems. "When the government planned to amend Criminal Procedure Code to reduce arrests under Section 498A to stop its misuse, lawyers protested against this move claiming they will not be able to make big money from bail fees from men and their families," says Vakharia.

Vakharia's view is that if the bill is passed by Parliament, then husbands will lose their hard-earned property if their marriage breaks. They will face false cases under Section 498A, Domestic Violence Act, Section 125 CrPC, etc. and get extorted further.

They may also lose custody of their children to their estranged wife and will become bankrupt if their wife decides to leave or if they are unhappy in the marriage.

"All I want is that the law minister should call for an open debate on the pros and cons of this law," he says.  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Amended-Marriage-Laws-Bill-2010-will-harm-interest-of-husbands/articleshow/22228527.cms 

Protest against IrBM in Bangalore