Marriage Dispute Settlement Laws in India
In most Indian movies, you may have seen how courts attempt to reconcile a husband and wife who want to divorce. In real life, too, every attempt is made by courts in India to bring about amicable settlement of marriage disputes.
Settlement of a marriage dispute is an extremely intricate task, as it involves matters of annulment, maintenance, matrimonial property and child custody. Often, reaching a mutual agreement becomes a long, futile task. To avoid such a drag on time and resources, Indian matrimonial laws require couples seeking divorce to primarily appear for counseling to resolve their conflicts.
Statutory Provisions for Counseling for Marriage Dispute Settlement
While counseling may have little impact on repairing a broken marital bond, reconciliation efforts are mandated under various personal law statutes in India. This includes:
The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
The Act states that before proceeding to discuss the matter of maintenance and settlement, the court is liable to attempt for reconciliation of the parties. The court also has the authority to adjourn the case proceedings for up to fifteen days and refer the issue to a party named by the parties. If the parties fail to name an individual, the court may nominate a person to oversee the matter of reconciliation.
The court is obligated to attempt reconciliation of individuals, married under the special marriage act, filing for a divorce. Reconciliation efforts are undertaken even if the couple file a joint petition for divorce. Unlike in case of the Hindu Marriage Act, the court is entitled to adjourn the divorce and settlement proceedings for as long as it deems fit.
Marriage Dispute Settlement through Mediation
With mediation, a couple filing for divorce attempts to resolve the matters of financial and custody settlement through a neutral third party. The success of this method relies largely on the willingness of the parties to cooperate. It must also be noted that, sometimes a mediator may be biased, which results in one party being forced to enter an unfavorable settlement agreement through promises and threats.
In India, there are no explicit laws governing the scope and functions of mediators. A mediatory role is generally undertaken by NGOs and other such agencies.
My observations:
Courts do not look much into any details. They simply direct the concerned parties for counseling services available within the court. In most occasions such counseling services are nothing but a sham. Men suffer the worst as most counselers simply do not record the genuine concerns expressed by men. Law itself is one sided in this matter.
The effort made to reconcile the husband and wife to come together is good. But its a bad approach considering that law always supports women irrespective of the fact that most women are simply using the existing laws to coerce men. A relationship where even a single instance of disagreement is enough to evidence to show that there is discord. if any one does not agree on a particular point, that alone is a hard fact that there is disagreement. In such cases its a futile exercise to bring them together to live under one roof as husband and wife.
Most women today are after the property of the husband and there is clear evidence to this from most cases. They are simply taking advantage of the present loopholes in law which is clearly one sided and favors women only.
Even if there is earlier judgements which clearly favored men based on hard facts, logical and rational assessment, the judges in family courts simply refuse to accept those and still most cases are ruled in favor of women. This is against the law and constitution since it violates law as well as the constitution. So who are the ones violating the law and constitution? Women, Judges and courts.
Most judges are simply incompetent. They refuse to see hard facts and pass judgements irrationally.
Counselors do not know how to conduct themselves and arrive at a unbiased opinion. The counseling approach itself is faulty with no focus.
With such lopsided approach by courts and law, we will have a society that is filled with hatred for each other. Its time we have a simpler process regarding dispute settlements in arising in married life. Unwilling parties should be allowed to separate and go their ways by an easier divorce process. Compensations must be based on earnings and available resources and not based on arbitrary or unsubstantiated claims made by parties. most women are greedy in this aspect. working women should NOT be eligible for any compensation as she can support herself. No excuses like that they cannot live below a certain level should be entertained. if she want to live a high spending life, then let her work towards it and should not expect her ex-husband to finance it.
As per my personal experice, in matrimonial cases courts, advocates, or govt are not taking proper interest. everybody are looking their own interest. Especialy women are not getting proper maintence amount, or service of mediations. Most of the advocates are interested in fees only. So, in india now a days dowry crimes are decrease, but husband and inlaws are doing mental harrasssment which can not be easily proved in court. so, now in society these types of husbands things that law are taking time , so they will leave the wife and she will have to wait life long for getting justice.
So, in our country old marriage related system was good for society. In this old social system, there were so many problems but marriages had been decided between known families . so there were possiblilities to solve problems by relatives. Truth is that marriage is depends on both husband and wife, and both should have to discuss freely if any problem.
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