Report Hindu Marriages Act

suchandra · June 18, 2008

Since India is still struggling with extreme poverty of many millions, what is especially striking the development of children. An additonal tightening of the situation of children is the explosively raise of divorce.

Hindu Marriages Act “has broken more homes than uniting”

http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/18/stories/2008061855451300.htm

Legal Correspondent

posted Wednesday, Jun 18, 2008 <table bgcolor="#d0f0ff" border="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td> The increasing number of divorce cases is cause for concern </td></tr></tbody></table> <hr color="lightblue" noshade="noshade"> “Nowadays anticipatory divorce petitions are being filed even at the time of marriage,” says judge

Ego should get dissolved for the sake of the child

<hr color="lightblue" noshade="noshade"> New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed its anguish and concern at the increasing number of divorce cases.

Justice Arijit Pasayat, heading a vacation Bench, orally observed that the Hindu Marriages Act “has broken more homes than uniting.”

He said: “The growing number of divorce cases in the country is having a disastrous effect on children of families which get broken.” In a lighter vein, he said: “Nowadays even at the time of marriages, anticipatory divorce petitions are being filed.”

Hearing a petition filed by Gaurav Nagpal, seeking custody of his minor son, Justice Pasayat said: “Ego should get dissolved for the sake of the child,” even as the mother, Sumedha Nagpal, who argued in person, opposed giving custody of the boy to her separated husband.

Justice Pasayat told the couple that the court was concerned about the welfare of the child rather than their mutual recrimination. “Ultimately the child suffers. If it is a girl, the trauma is more, particularly at the time of the marriage of such children.”

Provision misused Justice Pasayat said: “The provisions under the Hindu Marriages Act for granting divorce on grounds of either of the spouses suffering from diseases like leprosy and mental illness are being misused by some couples. Those days, our forefathers never had such problems and marital disputes were sorted out within the four walls of the house.”

Gaurav Nagpal filed his appeal against an order passed by the Delhi High Court confirming a trial court order, which granted custody of the 11-year-old boy to the mother.

Justices Pasayat and G.S. Singhvi suggested to the couple that they sort out their differences for the sake of the child. However, when Mrs. Nagpal turned down the offer, the judges heard the couple in the chambers. The Bench will pass an appropriate order on Wednesday if there is no settlement in the in-camera hearing.

Sephiroth · June 23, 2008

Marriage is an agreement between two people - the man and woman to live together and raise a family. Problems between them should be solved through discussion. If that fails, they should bring the problem to the attention of their elders, seeking advice.

Divorce is NEVER a solution. It may look like one but in the long run, it will not. At most of the time, it is the woman who have to take care of the children while the man are free to marry another. And in all cases, it is the child which always suffers of lack of love and attention.

suchandra · June 23, 2008

Marriage is an agreement between two people - the man and woman to live together and raise a family. Problems between them should be solved through discussion. If that fails, they should bring the problem to the attention of their elders, seeking advice.

Divorce is NEVER a solution. It may look like one but in the long run, it will not. At most of the time, it is the woman who have to take care of the children while the man are free to marry another. And in all cases, it is the child which always suffers of lack of love and attention.

Thanks Sephiroth, it could be that present governments do not work for the benefit of their citizens anymore but purposefully mislead their own fellow citizens to ruin them in the name of checking overpopulation. This is of course demoniac and not Krsna's desire to treat human beings like a plague. At least the Vaishnavas should be courageous and preach, you're mislead by godless people who want to push you into hell. Already Prabhupada mentioned how the Indian government actually mislead his own people.

Prabhupāda: Anything fresh. Any cultivator, he has got little land surrounding his house and he’s growing vegetables like squash, chilis, and some spinach, eggplant. And this banana. So whatever he’s grown he takes in a basket, goes to the market, immediately sold. And they’re all fresh. Collected in the morning, and it is sold by eight o’clock. All fresh vegetables. There was no export, there was no facility of transport. These rascals introduced transport. Big scale transport, this railway. There was no railway. So transport means this villager, instead of selling locally or one mile away, he will dispatch in Calcutta. The Calcutta people, they are sitting on table and smoking and printing paper money and exploit.

A local man cannot get. He’s starving. And the man in big cities, he’s doing nothing, he simply has got paper to sign and paper money he’s attracting. All production. And they are starving. This is modern civilization. Everything, milk, vegetables, fish, everything, this chānā. Otherwise, within the village you can get everything. Village economy. Everything very cheap. And as soon as they got these transport facilities, the local men, they could not eat, and these lazy rascals, they are getting everything. Big, big cities like Calcutta, Bombay, they have millions of population. They are not producing anything. The producer is different man. They are simply artificially cheating them by paper money and they take. This is modern civilization.

Room Conversation

with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

September 16, 1976, Vṛndāvana

Is Hindu marriage law breaking homes?

23 Jun 2008, 0815 hrs IST, Dhananjay Mahapatra,TNN

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Is_Hindu_marriage_law_breaking_homes/articleshow/3154827.cms

Rapid growth in population has led to a proportionate increase in the number of divorce cases. Many social factors are responsible for the spurt in their numbers.

The most important reason is that women have started asserting their legitimate equal status in the family, refusing to be subjugated by their husbands for life as their grandmothers used to be.

On numerous occasions during hearing of matrimonial disputes, Justice Arijit Pasayat, a senior judge of the Supreme Court, had commented in lighter vein — "Hindu Marriage Act (HMA) has broken more homes than it has united." One such recent observation hit the headlines.

Divorce is not a new phenomenon but is as old as civilisation itself. Prior to codification of the Hindu personal law, there were ways and means to terminate a marriage, but it was so heavily loaded in favour of men that women's opinion or grievances were seldom taken into account.

With the Constitution guaranteeing right to equality, codification of Hindu personal law — part of which is HMA — made men and women equal partners in a marriage.

Equal rights of women in marriage was one of the main considerations for a Bench comprising Justices Pasayat and S H Kapadia to direct all state governments on August 14, 2006, to compulsorily register marriages.

The aim was to make accountable unscrupulous husbands, who after deserting their wives for other women often denied their marriages taking advantage of the absence of documentary proof of their marriage to frustrate court orders directing them to pay alimony to their wives.

Justice Pasayat could not have seriously said that the law enacted to give equal rights to women in marriage had broken more homes, as he was convinced about the utility of having the marriages registered.

The law, thus, was enacted not to break marriages but to crystallise the rights of partners in marriage to help them live with self-respect.

In the older days, a woman married to a schizophrenic used to live on without complaining despite her husband being unable to consummate the marriage.

The fear of taunts from society used to make her swallow the mental torture. In 2006, a Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices Ruma Pal and A R Lakshmanan ruled that abstinence by husbands due to mental disorder was a valid ground for divorce for women.

Divorce was granted to one of the parties to the marriage when he or she proved the other partner's fault, listed as a ground for divorce in the Hindu Marriage Act. The court in a 2006 divorce case — Naveen Kohli vs Neelu Kohli — went a step further.

A three-judge Bench of the apex court found that many a couple were being tied down to dead marriages just because one of them refused to consent to a divorce.

It said, "Once the parties have separated and the separation has continued for a sufficient length of time and one of them has presented a petition for divorce, it can well be presumed that the marriage has broken down. The court, no doubt, should seriously make an endeavour to reconcile the parties; yet, if it is found that the breakdown is irreparable, then divorce should not be withheld."

For, the consequences of preservation in law of an unworkable marriage, "which has long ceased to be effective, are bound to be a source of greater misery for the parties", the three-judge Bench had said while recommending to the legislature to examine introducing "irretrievable breakdown of marriage" as a ground for divorce in the HMA.

Why would the apex court add another ground to the already home-breaking provisions of the Act? Because, it had never viewed in its judgments through the years that HMA was a home-breaking law. For, the judges were of the view that "foundation of a sound marriage is tolerance, adjustment and respecting one another".

The law does not make or break a marriage. Couples need not be married to share a live-in relationship. The question is: Should a couple carry on with a marriage even when the cardinal principles for a harmonious matrimonial life break down — whoever may be at fault, the husband or the wife?

In Naveen Kohli vs Neelu Kohli case, the SC had said the courts need not get swayed by sentiments of a hard case. For, "the ideal couple will have no occasion to go to matrimonial court".

(dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com)