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Divorce (amendment) bill gets parliamentary nod

Parliament on Thursday approved the Indian Divorce (Amendment) Bill, 2000 to give Christian women the right to seek marriage annulment.

The bill also leaves it to the discretion of the district court to fix the quantum of maintenance.

Replying to the discussion in the Lok Sabha, Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley said the bill was brought after a wide-ranging dialogue between the government, the parliamentary standing committee, the Bishops Conference of India and the National Council of Churches.

Jaitley said the issue of allowing Christian women the right to seek divorce had been hanging fire for more than 40 years and the law commission as well the high courts of Bombay, Madras, Andhra Pradesh, Calcutta and Kerala had emphasised the need to bring about gender equality in Christian divorces.

The minister said the grounds of dissolution (of marriage) were proposed to be further widened on the lines of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954 in deference to the wishes of Christian organisations.

Jaitley said the measure was aimed at removing gender bias in a law which, in its current form, was loaded in the favour of men.

The parliamentary standing committee's suggestion for empowering certain religious authorities to deal with divorce cases was not accepted by the government as it would amount to usurping the judicial powers of courts, Jaitley said.

PTI

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