Judgment

R. M. SAHAI

( 1 ) THESE appeals directed against the interim order passed by the High court in an appeal filed by Respondent 2 against rejection of an application for setting aside of an ex parte decree, raise an important issue as to how to protect the rights and interests of women who are deserted by non-resident Indians on decree of annulment obtained from foreign courts.

( 2 ) PLIGHT of women and their exploitation both inside and outside the house socially and economically is ancient. A mass of literature has been written to elevate their status. But a new social evil is surfacing. Any matrimonial column of any newspaper or magazine would carry a column that a NRI seeks Indian bride without any demand. The attraction of getting a groom and that too serving or earning abroad without dowry, lures many specially from middle class. Even otherwise parental insistence for Indian bride in the hope that their son is not lost for ever is not uncommon. Result, at times, is matrimonial alliance by a reluctant husband to assuage the sentiments of his parents. Victim is the helpless, poor, educated girl, normally, of a middle class family with dreams of a foreign land.

( 3 ) TO what extent such misfortune may befall any innocent girl is vividly transparent by this unfortunate case. The appellant M. A. , B. Ed. daughter of a senior Air Force officer serving as a teacher and drawing salary of Rs. 3,000. 00 was married to Respondent 1, a Doctorate in Computer Hardware and employed in United States, at the behest of her father-in-law approached through a common family friend. How Respondent 1 met the appellant at Delhi upon his own request then picked her from her aunts place at Bombay before marriage is not necessary to be stated nor is it necessary to narrate that the marriage was performed with gusto befitting the status of both the families. The marriage was performed on 6/8/1989 and the appellant wastaken for honeymoon to Goa for few days. Respondent 1 returned to America on 24/8/1989, wrote letters to appellant on 15/9/1989, 20/10/1989 and 14/11/1989 persuading her to give up her job and suggesting the various avenues for her career in America. Appellant believing all that tried for visa and ultimately resigned her job in November 1989. But from December things started getting cold. And when father of appellant wrote a letter in January 1990 to the respondent-husband about the sufferings of her daughter, it did not bring forth any favourable response and in June 1990 the respondents brother came to Delhi and handed over two envelopes, one a petition for annulment of marriage in a USA court and another a letter from her father-in-law which reads as under: "i have no words to express my feelings at Jayants decision which is very unfortunate. I was hoping against hope. I have to accept the moral responsibility for Jayants decision and apologize. Baba and your Mausa, they can squarely blame me for not knowing my son. This is agonizing experience for you in your life. I cannot say any more. Please bear in my mind that we share your grief. I earnestly request you to see us when you come here in Bombay and keep friendly relations. God bless you. Yours affectionately, Nana" For the father-in-law it was an unfortunate experiment, an effort, hoping against hope forgetting that failure of it would be ruination of the other. For the son it was a pleasure trip. But for the daughter-in-law it was loss of everything, her maidenhood, status, service, dignity and peace. Her dreams stood shattered and she was reduced to nothing. accepting moral responsibility, not knowing the son, sharing the grief by the father-in-law are of little avail to the appellant. There is no whisper in the letter that he was willing to compensate for the wrong done to the appellant due to error in his assessment of his own son. It is not the soothing words alone which were needed but some practical solution to the disaster brought about by him. In these desperate cir