Plz, go thru the news, and hope for other states too implement it soon,
Panel wants changes in divorce laws to ensure fair maintenance for women
Published: Tuesday, Sep 28, 2010, 8:21 IST
By Srikanth Hunasavadi | Place: Bangalore | Agency: DNA
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The Karnataka state law commission on Monday called for reforms in divorce laws to check husbands from making false claims over their incomes and assets to deprive their spouses of fair maintenance.
It suggested that husbands should be made to file affidavits on their income and assets under Section 125(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). In the absence of such a mechanism, wives in a majority of the cases were not getting a fair maintenance as husbands could get away by claiming that they had no income and assets, a report prepared by the panel said. The report recommended that within 15 days of the servicing of the notice of the application for maintenance, the person against whom the application was made should file before the court an affidavit giving full information about all his income and assets, movable and immovable and if employed, about the income he was receiving and name and address of the employer. The maintenance amount awarded to the wife should be paid within two weeks from the date of the order and the monthly maintenance amount should be paid within a week from the beginning of each month, failing which the husband should pay interest for the defaulting period at the monthly rate of 15%. The commission also recommended that the definition of the term wife given in explanation ‘b’ to Section 125(1) of the CrPC should be amended by adding “Wife or woman whose marriage is void on the ground that her husband was married earlier and his first wife is living or a woman who has lived with him like his wife”. It also recommended amendments to Section 498A of Indian Penal Code (IPC) according to which if a woman filed a complaint of dowry harassment against her husband or any relative, they would be punishable with three years imprisonment if found guilty and it would be considered as a non-bailable offence. The panel suggested that the charge should be made a bailable offence and only the husband or a relative of the husband of the woman who subjected her to cruelty should be punished. “People can approach the law commission with their complaints against complicated laws. It will not only help them, it will also help the people and governments update the legislation as and when the situation arises” said justice VS Malimath, chairman, law commission of Karnataka. “There are several archaic laws that need to be relooked. We will take the recommendations of the law commission very seriously and take action to implement the recommendations” said Suresh Kumar. |
