I need advice on a criminal case that my brother’s ex-wife had started about 9 yrs ago.
She misused the law and made false complaints that she had been asked for dowry by my parents and brother and also she had been exposed to cruelty. There are 2 separate cases, one against my parents and 1 against my brother. One against my brother has not been started as my brother never returned.
My brother was living abroad. He came to get married in 2002, and take her along but she harassed him so much that he left the country without her. He had stayed with her for only 3 months. Desperate to bring him back, she started harassing my parents and finally took legal recourse by misusing the laws. She and her relatives started accumulating witnesses by campaigning lies to the neighbours. Neighbours were never aware of anything as my parents were quite conservative and do not like confiding personal matters to others. My parents single handedly fought the case always believing in the ideal that justice will prevail and they will win as they have done no wrong. It caused great mental trauma for my parents for years and my parents’ health suffered throughout. My father finally fell prey to this stress and passed away 3 months ago. It caused such anguish for the whole family as even at such a juncture my brother as the only son, was not able to come to India to perform the last rites of our father as he is the only earning member and his passport may be confiscated. My mother’s health has also suffered very severely and has survived life threatening conditions so much that now doctors have said that her body has got used to the strongest life-saving drugs that they may not work on her again if she gets into such a situation again. She has been hospitalized numerous times which they have always said as lies. We have the documents to prove her numerous hospitalizations. Even in his final days when my father was hospitalized they said we were lying. Through the years their own witnesses had gone against them and my parents were more and more convinced that justice would prevail. Even the police who would come for verification of facts saw how frail my parents were and that the charges against them had to be baseless and false. In the meantime their ex-daughter-in-law got a divorce ex-parte and got remarried. But we have no proof about the marriage. We came to know about it only because of the community network. We have been told that she even went abroad to her husband. After we got to know about the divorce, even my brother remarried abroad. But since the divorce was exparte we do not have the divorce documents and therefore no proof of the divorce either.
On the 9th of this month the final judgment was given which convicted my mother and sentenced her to 1 yrs imprisonment. This has shocked my whole family as this was least expected and traumatized my mother and her health is taking a hit. Though bail has been arranged and we plan to appeal against this in the District Court, I need advice on:
1. where we went wrong last time
2. What shd be our future course of action
3. How can we get a copy of the divorce in my brother’s absence.
4. What shd be our line of defense?
5. How can we expose and prove that she has misused the law?
6. Is it worth the time and effort to prove the same?
7. Can we ask for compensation for the trauma that we have undergone?
8. How can we prevent my mother from imprisonment?
Secondly, since my father has not left a will, we want to transfer my father’s property in my mother’s name and all 3 of we siblings (2 daughters and 1 son) are willing to relinquish our rights over the property. I am told she needs to obtain a legal heir certificate and for this we have to get a registered release deed prepared and sign that.
What is the procedure for preparing this deed?
Do we need to submit copies of property documents to the court for this purpose? What will be the procedure in case of more than a single property?
I desperately need advise as we do not want my mother to suffer any more.
Rgds
