Respected Sirs. I would like to bring to your notice the agony that we are facing for few weeks now. We belong to a middle class family and I got engaged to a girl from a middle class family as well. We got engaged in Sept 09 and the marriage was scheduled to happen on Apr 30 ' 10. Due to incompatibility between the two families over petty issues we decided to part especially with the girls brother-in-law ( Elder Sister's husband). After months of silence the brother-in-law has demanded 50000/- as compensation for the engagement ceremony that they had organised for the same ceremony we had gifted 18000/ worth Sari, 15000 worth of Jewels of Bride. We never intended to take back whatever we had given because we were hurt that marriage had come to a halt over petty issues and especially the adamance of the Brother-in-law( Bride's father is no more ) and he is the dominating person in the family.
1. We would still like to welcome the girl into her family but he makes sure that no one in the brides family is accessible by us.
2. He is demanding Rs 50000/- as compensation , we still dont know if the girls family Mother, Brother are in support of this.
3. He is threatening to sue us with defamation case to the tune of Rs 5 lacs, if we dont pay the money.
4. He is also threatening to file Dowry related Cases against us which foresee would be very damaging for a family of kind.
Sirs. pls advise us the way forward in this case, the brides brother-in-law looks like someone who will go to any distance just to satisfy his ego, do we take a defensive approach as the engagement has taken place and do a settlement or do we get offensive and take the legal steps first. I am even confused to place the right questions on this forum , kindly advise. The last thing I would want is anti dowry charges levelled against our family. where in I can vouch on God's name that the Dowry was never even mentioned in the complete discussions.
