Now, ‘Lok Adalats’ for NRI deserted wives
Friday, 12/10/2012
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=52276&boxid=58550&uid=&dat=2012-10-12
Jalandhar : Alarmed over the cases of NRI deserted wives from the Doaba belt of Punjab, the Regional Passport Office of Jalandhar has decided to hold coordinated ‘lok adalats’ with Inspector General (IG) NRI Affairs Gurpreet Kaur Deo soon.
The need for a first of its kind ‘lok adalat’ for such ‘Holiday Wives’ was felt following official hurdles faced by the passport office in sorting out the cases of the deserted wives. Further, lack of awareness among people, especially girls to save themselves from sham marriages was also a big hindrance.
Regional Passport Officer Parneet Singh said that a majority of the fraud NRI marriages go unnoticed, as no FIRs were registered. “This is one major flaw that we have noticed in all such sham marriage issues. Since, pursuing such cases with respective embassies as well as the Ministry of External Affairs requires certain documentary evidence, we find it little difficult to initiate the proceedings. However, a joint ‘lok adalat’ definitely holds a solution in this direction,” he added.
“In fact, we have been coordinating with IG Gurpreet Deo in solving such cases. And a joint ‘lok adalat’ for deserted brides would be a big success in the region,” he added.
The passport officer stated that it was owing to this reason that till date they had been able to impound only 115 passports from the region while 317 complaints were received since March 2011. “We were able to settle only 41 cases of such deserted wives, which is too less a number for an alarming social problem,” he told Daily Post.
The initiative taken by Parneet inspired an episode of ‘Satyamev Jayate’.
