Sunday, September 26, 2010

Live-In Relationship-Perspective of Indian Women- Misuse of ANTI-MALE Marital laws 498a Dowry laws-Men Husband need Protection-P7 news KAYDA KANOON 26sep10

Live-In Relationship-Perspective of Indian Women- Misuse of ANTI-MALE Marital laws 498a Dowry laws-Men Husband need Protection-P7 news KAYDA KANOON 26sep10


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SC judge advocates transparency in the working of judges and unbiased approach

SC judge advocates transparency in the working of judges and unbiased approach

Punjab Newsline Network

 

Sunday, 26 September 2010

CHANDIGARH: Justice Dalveer Bhandari Judge, Supreme Court of India Sunday stressed the need to enhance quality of adjudication besides stepping up the efforts to monitor the same at the highest level. 

He was speaking at the valedictory function of the three-day Regional Judicial conference organized by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in collaboration with Chandigarh Judicial Academy and National Judicial Academy on Enhancing Quality of Adjudication at Chandigarh Judicial Academy. Justice Bhandari said that the hallmark of quality of adjudication was transparency in the working of the judges and their unbiased approach. The judgments should be consistent, correct and there should be commitment on the part of the judiciary to uphold the values enshrined in our Constitution. Valedictory sessions was presided over by Justice Mukul Mudgal, Chief Justice, Punjab & Haryana High Court and Justice S.B. Sinha, former Judge, Supreme Court of India was the guest of honour. Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, Judge, Punjab & Haryana High Court concluded the conference with vote of thanks.

The Conference was inaugurated by Justice Mukul Mudgal Chief Justice Punjab and Haryana High Court on September 24. Addressing the judicial officers Justice Mudgal said that quality of justice was inseparable from the expectations of the society.  In ultimate analysis, his Lordship emphasized a balancing of various factors involved in the dispensation of justice with a view to achieve what our society requires so that we could live up to the expectations of the people and make the justice delivery system really efficacious. Delivering the key note address, Justice T.S. Thakur, Judge Hon’ble Supreme Court of India said that so far no one has challenged our judicial system which was based on sound principles but there was a need to increase the Judge-population ratio and if our Judicial Officers were given to deal with lesser number of cases then certainly the quality of adjudication would not be in any manner lesser than the other advanced Countries. The reference was also made regarding the disposal in a phased manner by the Courts working under Punjab & Haryana High Court, during the tenure of Justice T.S. Thakur as the Chief Justice of Punjab & Haryana High Court and the results regarding disposal were appreciable.

Professor G. Mohan Gopal, Director, National Judicial Academy, Bhopal, pointed out that there is need to measure and monitor quality of adjudication. We must set some parameters or standards for the same. He further pointed out that Right Protection Index can be one of the indicators for measuring and monitoring quality of adjudication. He further stated about six points for dispensing quality justice. Professor Virender Kumar, Director, Academic CJA, in his address said that overall public trust and confidence is the dominant condition of good governance, transparency and accountability and is vital to the interest of the society.  The Court should strive to achieve such levels of efficient working as to create the necessary trust and confidence in the people.

Justice Deepak Mishra, Chief Justice Delhi High Court, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Judge, Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice Deepak Gupta, Judge, H.P. High Court Justice Sunil Hali, Judge, J & K High Court, Justice Dharamveer, Judge, Uttrakhand High Court, Justice Ranjit Singh, Judge, Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice J. P. Singh, Judge, J& K High Court , Justice Shantanagoudar, Judge Karnataka High Court, Justice Sanjib Banerjee, Judge, Calcutta High Court, Justice Sunil Ambwani, Judge, Allahabad High Court, Justice Badar Durrej Ahmed, Judge, Delhi High Court, Justice K. Kannan, Judge, Punjab and Haryana High Court also expressed their views during the three-day judicial conference.

http://www.punjabnewsline.com/content/sc-judge-advocates-transparency-working-judges-and-unbiased-approach/24303

Man asked to serve animals for kidnapping, marrying minor girl

Man asked to serve animals for kidnapping, marrying minor girl

New Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI)

In an unusual order, a Delhi court has released a convict on probation asking him to serve injured and sick animals for a year as a punishment for kidnapping and tying nuptial knot with a minor girl after concealing his married status.

"I direct that convict Rajpal be released on probation of good conduct for a period of two years on furnishing a personal and surety bond of Rs 10,000 each and with a further condition that he shall render service to the sick and injured animals particularly the strays for a period of one year...," Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau said.
The court asked 28-year-old Rajpal, a resident of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, to report to the NGO-run Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Centre at Raja Garden here to undertake the duties for three days in a week for one hour each day.
"In case of any absenteeism or default or breach of condition of probation on the part of the convict, he shall have to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of two years," it cautioned.
Earlier, Rajpal, a fruit vendor, who was already married and is a father of two minor children, was convicted under Sections 363 (kidnapping a minor) and 366 (abducting a woman to compel her to marry) of the IPC for tying nuptial knot with his 14-year-old neighbour last year.
Before being sentenced, the convict told the court that he was aware of having committed a "moral and legal wrong" and wanted to make an attempt for change his life for better and atone for the sins and crime which he had committed.
Taking note of the "remorseful" conduct, the court asked the probation officer to file a report.The report said the convict belonged to "a very poor family" and was a fruit seller by profession.
"I have spoken to the convict in the court and I am satisfied that he genuinely regrets his shameful and hurtful act. The regrets offered by the convict of his act may be because of remorse or could even be a response to the fear of consequences of his act including the fear of being punished for such an act," the court said.
It said that the victim, who is happily married, be left alone to ensure that the shadow of her past does not affect her matrimonial life.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/99716/man-asked-serve-animals-kidnapping.html

Married or no, women maintenance a must- Deserted long-term live-in partner entitled to support, says SC

Married or no, women maintenance a must - Deserted long-term live-in partner entitled to support, says apex court

OUR LEGAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, Sept. 25: The Supreme Court has said that any woman in a long-term live-in relationship is entitled to maintenance if deserted.

It is immaterial whether the woman was legally married to the man or not, the court said. What matters is whether she was completely dependent on him for sustenance.

“Women can’t be left vagrant. Right to life (guaranteed under the Constitution) includes the right to live with dignity. It is not possible to live with dignity when a woman has no food and leads the life of a destitute,” said Justice A.K. Ganguly, sitting with senior judge G.S. Singhvi.

Justice Singhvi added: “Someone has to take care of her if she is not able to, just to prevent vagrancy.”

“Leaving women to vagrancy threatens social stability and public order,” Justice Ganguly underlined. Women are, after all, the source of all power, he said.

The two judges were hearing the petition of a woman, Chunmuniya, who claimed that after her husband Ram Sharan died on March 7, 1992, she was “married” off to his younger brother Virendra Kumar Singh Kushwaha, as was the practice in her caste. Among some communities in northern India, the widow of an older brother is forced to live with any surviving brother. The marriage was performed simply by doing a katha, she said.

Virendra, who was 10 years younger than Ram Sharan, deserted her in 1996. She moved an application for maintenance on March 26, 1997, but he married another woman in 1998 while it was pending.

A family court upheld Chunmuniya’s plea for maintenance. But Virendra went to the high court denying that he had been married to her. He claimed she had fraudulently inserted her name as his wife in the family register with the panchayat to get a share of the property.

The high court ruled in his favour on November 11, 2007, saying Chunmuniya had not been able to prove marriage. Invocation before a sacred fire and saptapadi were the two ceremonies essential to the validity of a marriage, it said, setting aside the family court order. Chunmuniya then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court decided that the issue needed consideration and appointed Altaf Ahmad and P.S. Patwalia as the amicus curiae to assist the judges in deciding the issue. Both contended that the law could be interpreted to include all such women in the definition of “wife” to enable them to get maintenance.

Ahmed said that if a woman marries under personal laws, she immediately gets several rights and obligations. Those who do not, do not get any rights. “If such dependent women are provided for, this trend (of living-in) will also be discouraged,” he contended.

The bench agreed that the status of a wife need not be a pre-requisite for getting maintenance before reserving orders in the case. A prolonged domestic relationship resembling marriage is enough to entitle a deserted woman to maintenance, it observed.

Patwalia said that living-in was a fast-catching “urban phenomenon” which the law must address. “Here, the man has no obligations or responsibilities of any kind. Let the law reach out to them,” he said.

The bench also expressed anguish over the use of such words as “illegitimate” children and “other woman” in various laws and blamed the “patriarchal” mindset of law-makers for this. “The use of the word illegitimate stigmatises these children the day they are born,” Justice Singhvi said.

At another point, the court criticised law-makers for enshrining Rs 500 as the maximum maintenance per month in a 1973 law. “Whoever fixed the amount was miserly,” the judges observed. The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, enshrines this as the maximum maintenance for all dependants — wife and children.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100926/jsp/nation/story_12983394.jsp

The cruelty of women who use children as weapons in divorce

The cruelty of women who use children as weapons in divorce

By Harriet Sergeant
Last updated at 10:10 AM on 22nd September 2010

 

Distraught: Many divorced fathers describe the loss of their <br />children as 'an emotional amputation' or 'a living bereavement'

Distraught: Many divorced fathers describe the loss of their children as 'an emotional amputation' or 'a living bereavement'

About ten years ago, I was standing in my son's junior school classroom. The teacher had stuck up on the wall the best essays on the topic: 'How I Spent Last Weekend.' One caught my attention.

Not for this little boy a visit to the zoo or the excitement of a football game. Instead, he had chronicled a weekend's battle between his divorcing parents.

'Mum calls dad names on the phone,' he had written in his laborious handwriting. 'We had cake for tea. My sister and I cry.' The teacher caught my eye. She had put up that story on purpose.

'I want the parents to see what divorce they are doing to their children. They should be ashamed of themselves,' she said.

My son recently bumped into that little boy. A decade on, he is 18, has dropped out of school and is on drugs.

Sir Nicholas Wall, the President of the Family Division of the High Court, agrees that something has to be done. He has accused separating couples, especially those from the middle classes, of using their children as 'both the battlefield and the ammunition' to try to score points in their personal disputes.

'There is nothing worse, for most children, than for their parents to denigrate each other,' said the country's most senior family court judge. 'The child's sense of self-worth can be irredeemably damaged.'

Six years ago, my husband and I divorced. It came as a great shock. But we were all too aware our children were just becoming adolescents - and that adolescence is perilous enough without warring parents.

We tried, not always successfully on my part, never to criticise each other in front of the children. Very occasionally, I even managed to emphasise his good points (of which there are many) - it was quite hard when at the time all I wanted to do was murder him.

A female friend was shocked. 'Why aren't you using the children against him?' she asked. 'I would.' 

More...

Her reaction is not unusual. The battlefields Sir Nicholas Wall describes are too often of the wife's choosing. This is because most divorces are initiated by women due to their husband's infidelity, as the fatherhood research body Fathers Direct points out.

These women are hurt and they want to get their own back through the children, money or both. They are determined the husband is as much divorced from his children as his wife.

One wealthy man I know finds himself, despite his riches, at the beck and call of his former wife.

'How can my wife hurt me? How could she bring me to my knees?' he asks. 'Through my children.'

The strategy is very successful. This otherwise powerful man submits to every capricious demand.

'With just two hours' notice, I had to cancel an important meeting and take them to the dentist,' he said. If he refused, his wife said, he would not see them for a month.

An advertising director found himself equally powerless when his wife suddenly moved from London to the Midlands with their two sons.

'How can my wife hurt me? How could she bring me to my knees?' he asks. 'Through my children.'

'She did not tell me. One day she just stopped answering the phone. Until then I had been seeing my sons every weekend,' he says.

By the time the case reached court, the sons were settled in a new school. The judge admitted that what the woman had done was illegal, but because it was in the best interests of the children to be with their mother, he did nothing.

'She had got away with effectively kidnapping my children,' said the father. His relationship with his sons has all but broken down. Their new home is too far for them to come to London. When he goes to see them, he has to stay in a hotel.

'The children get bored in an hour or two,' he says. 'They have their friends and their sports, which they would rather do instead.'

He tells me he finds the situation 'so goddamn painful. I try to play the role of a father - but how can I when I have been deliberately moved to the periphery of their lives?'

The situation leaves many men I have interviewed distraught. They describe the loss of their children as 'an emotional amputation' or 'a living bereavement'.

It is no wonder that within two years of divorce, half of fathers lose contact with their children.

Irredeemably damaged: Children are often forgotten victims in <br />divorce, but there can be dire consequences should their parents split <br />up

Irredeemably damaged: Children are often forgotten victims in divorce, but there can be dire consequences should their parents split up

As one man said sadly, divorce 'leaves many fathers on the edge of a bloody great abyss. Many fall off and are never seen again'.

Douglas Alexiou, one of London's pre-eminent family lawyers, agrees that the wife holds all the cards in a divorce case.

'Court order after court order is served. The wife claims the children are ill or just do not want to see their father,' he says.

'There is very little a court can do if a mother has poisoned the minds of her children against the father. There is no sanction against the mother apart from a jail term - and no court will do that.

'Perhaps one day a judge will be bold enough to jail a mother and finally set an example.'  

In all this there is only one real victim - the children. If one of those wives was handed an axe and ordered to hack off a limb of her child, she would be appalled. Yet so many women are happy, even gleeful, to commit the equivalent emotional amputation on their children by depriving them of their father.

U.S. author Kathleen Parker in her excellent book Save The Males points out that in depriving a child of their father, 'we reduce a child's chance of a successful and happy life.

'Growing up without a father is the most reliable indicator of poverty and all the familiar social pathologies affecting children, including drug abuse, truancy, delinquency and sexual promiscuity.'

But this misery is not only the fault of the parents. The family court system is adversarial and encourages couples to fight, says Nadine O'Connor, campaign manager at the lobby group Fathers4Justice.

And change, she says, will be a long time in coming - until lawyers stop making their own killing from warring parents, children will continue to be used as weapons.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1314131/The-cruelty-women-use-children-weapons-divorce.html#ixzz10ZZRIO1u