India Legal News: Hindu Wife Can Seek Divorce Even if Husband is Foreign Citizen

As per India legal news reports, the Madras High Court has held that the courts in the country have jurisdiction to address matrimonial cases, which involve Hindus and are governed by the Hindu Marriage Act, including those cases where the opposite party is a foreign citizen, residing outside India.

India Legal News: Popular South Indian Actress Sukanya Divorces American Husband

As per India legal news reports, the Madras High Court announced this significant decision while ruling in a ‘celebrity’ divorce case.  The popular South Indian actress, R.Sukanya filed for divorce. In 2002, the actress had married R.Sridharan in New Jersey.

The following year, she returned to her acting career but her husband is reported to have sent her letters, asking her to come back. The conflict between the couple took off from there. Sukanya refused to give up her career and she filed a divorce petition in the family court in Chennai.

Without her husband’s permission, the actress obtained divorce. On knowing this, R. Sridharan filed a writ petition before the High Court of Madras, arguing that the divorce obtained in Chennai is not binding since their marriage had taken place in the US. The gist of his argument was that the Indian court had had no jurisdiction to grant divorce in this case. In this case, the Madras High Court held that their marriage was solemnized under the Hindu Marriage Act.

Therefore, the couple will be governed by it, irrespective of which part of the country or world the wife resides and even if her husband is a foreign national with domicile outside India. The division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice K.K. Sasidharan said that after amendment of section 19, of the Hindu Marriage Act, the jurisdiction of the Act is not limited to India.

They stated that it extends outside the territory of India. They pointed out, as follows, “the fact that the husband is residing outside the territory does not prevent the wife from applying before the local designated court to redress her grievances.”

Govt to facilitate NRI investment

Chandigarh, July 13
The state government will set up a “Foreign Investment and NRI Cell” for attracting foreign investment and redressing problems faced by the NRIs of Haryana domicile.The cell will be located in Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), which has been designated as a nodal agency for investment related matters.
The Home Department will act as a nodal agency for addressing grievances relating to property, marital disputes, law and order and other related social issues of the NRIs.
The cell will have a web portal, “Connect Haryana Forum”, to act as a single-point contact for the NRIs and the PIOs and also for building the necessary database. The department will nominate a single point of contact to whom all relevant correspondence or grievances received in the cell, in electronic or paper form, will be forwarded and monitored along with a “status-tracking facility” to the person making such correspondence.
An advisory committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister has also been constituted at the apex level to review the action taken by the cell from time to time. The Industries Minister, the Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, the Principal Secretaries, Home, Industries & Commerce, Town & Country Planning and Public Relations, Chief Administrator (HUDA) and Director, Industries & Commerce, will be its members.

US group seeks separate registration of Sikh marriages

Sep 1, 2011, 10.58PM IST
WASHINGTON: A US-based Sikh communityadvocacy group has sought UN intervention to persuade India to pass a law for separate registration of Sikh marriages.

Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) Wednesday submitted a memorandum to UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief Heiner Bielefeldt seeking UN intervention to impress India "to amend article 25 of the Indian Constitution to restore the independent status of Sikhism".

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government has refused to pass an act for registration of Sikh marriages while Muslims, Parsis, Christians and Jews of India already have separate acts for registration of their marriages, SFJ said.

The Indian "government's refusal to pass law forseparate registration of Sikh marriages is yet another instant of discrimination based on religion towards Sikhs", it said.

SFJ legal advisor Gurpatwant Singh Pannun alleged the demand and struggle of Sikhs to have Sikhism recognized as a separate religion has resulted in extreme repression by Indian government.

SFJ has also launched a "Proud to be Sikh" campaign to collect signatures, garner support and spread awareness among the world community about the alleged "discrimination meted to Sikhs by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government".

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New York law to ensure freedom to Sikh employees

New York, August 31
Sikhs in the US will be allowed to wear turbans and grow beards in federal agencies like the police department and transit authority after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg today signed a Bill into law that will ensure freedom for employees to practice religious beliefs at workplace.
The ‘Workplace Religious Freedom Bill’ was initiated by civil rights group Sikh Coalition and sponsored by Queens Democrat Council member Mark Weprin.
In signing the law, Bloomberg said employers must make a “reasonable accommodation” for an employee’s religious practices unless following such practises create an “undue hardship.” The undue hardship is now defined as requiring “significant expense or difficulty.” “This Bill sends the message that people should not have to choose between serving our city and adhering to their religious beliefs. All Americans should receive the full embrace of our country’s constitutional freedoms,” Weprin said.
Sikh Coalition’s programme director and co-founder Amardeep Singh said the law would ensure that religious minorities like Sikhs and Muslims in the US are not discriminated against by their employers for practising their religion.
“The law is a major step in ensuring Sikhs and other religious minorities are not unfairly excluded from jobs for which they are otherwise qualified,” Singh said. He said a few Sikhs were told by the New York Police Department (NYPD) that they could not wear their turbans as traffic agents.

NRI first to be charged under new UK Bribery Act

London, September 1
An Indian-origin clerk in a British court who was filmed apparently accepting a £500 bribe has become the first person to be charged under the new Bribery Act. Munir Patel (21) has been charged with taking a bribe from a defendant while he was employed at a court in east London.
He is also accused of misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice at Redbridge Magistrates’ Court in Ilford, according to a BBC report.
He was arrested after The Sun filmed a man apparently accepting £500 to keep a traffic penalty off a legal database.
He will appear at Southwark Crown Court in south London on October 14.
“I am satisfied there is sufficient evidence to charge Munir Patel with requesting and receiving a bribe on August 1 intending to improperly perform his functions,” said Gaon Hart, a lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service.
He said: “Patel has already been charged with misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice. He still faces these charges, which relate to other alleged misconduct during his employment.”
The Bribery Act, which came into force on July 1, made it illegal to offer or receive bribes, and to fail to prevent bribery.

Religion-based protection for workers in New York

IANS | Sep 3, 2011, 09.37PM IST
NEW YORK: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has signed into law a bill initiated by the Sikh Coalition to significantly enhance religion-based protections for employees working in the metropolis.

"Today's law is a major step forward in ensuring Sikhs and other religious minorities are not unfairly excluded from jobs for which they are otherwise qualified," said Amardeep Singh, programme director and co-founder of the community advocacy group.

Called the " Workplace Religious Freedom Act", the new law would change the legal standard by which courts review claims of religious workplace discrimination by public and private city employees.

Under previous city law, employers are required to make "reasonable accommodations" for the religious practices of their employees.

However, employers can bypass this requirement by showing that such accommodations would impose a minimal difficulty or expense on the employer's business.

The new law will still allow employers to deny religious accommodations, but only by proving that such accommodations
would constitute a "significant difficulty or expense," the Sikh Coalition said.

The current law does not allow Sikhs to work for the New York City Police Department unless they remove their turbans, the Coalition said.

Similarly, Sikh and Muslim workers who currently work for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) are forced to brand their religious headwear with an MTA logo.

While the new law does not force either the MTA or NYPD to accept Sikhs with their full articles of faith, it creates a legal framework within city law that makes it very difficult to continue to exclude them from city jobs, the coalition said.

Citing a research report issued by it in 2008, the group alleged one in ten Sikhs in New York City reported suffering discrimination in employment.

US housing society to pay $110,000 for keeping Indians out

HOUSTON: A Seattle-based housing society will pay over USD 110,000 to settle a US Justice Department lawsuit that alleged the society discriminated against Indians and African-Americans seeking to rent apartments in the complex.

According to the lawsuit filed on July 26, 2010, owners and operators of Summerhill Place Apartments, in Renton near Seattle, "steered Indian tenants away from the Summerhill buildings and treated tenants from India less favourably than other tenants."

They also discouraged African-Americans, Hispanics and families with children from living at Summerhill.

Under the terms of the settlement, apartment owners Summerhill Place LLC, as well as a management company called Gran Inc and the apartment manager, Rita Lovejoy, will pay USD 85,000 to tenants and prospective tenants who were harmed by the discrimination.

The group will also pay USD 25,000 to the government as a civil penalty and enact a number of changes to the apartments.

The settlement must still be approved by the US District Court for the Western District of Washington.

"Working families already face enough challenges finding affordable housing," Thomas E Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, said.

"Unlawful discrimination because of their race, their national origin, or because they have children, should not be one of them."

The lawsuit was filed after the Fair Housing Council of Washington conducted investigations at Summerhill, and the results were reported to the Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD).

After an investigation, the secretary of HUD determined that there was reasonable cause to believe that discriminatory housing practices had occurred, issued a charge of discrimination, and referred the matter to the Department of Justice.

Under the terms of the settlement, the defendants also have to provide fair housing training to their employees, and develop and maintain non-discrimination policies at Summerhill. 

Indian-origin Canadian gets life term for killing wife

TORONTO: A Canadian court has sentenced an Indian-origin man to life in prison for murdering his pregnant wife in 2006.

Mukhtiar Panghali, who was charged a few months after his school teacher wife Manjit Panghali's charred corpse was found near a waterway at Delta,British Columbia in 2006, was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 15 years, the thestar.com reported.

In her judgement, BC Supreme Court Judge Heather Holmes said the "egregious circumstances" of the killing motivated her to go beyond the minimum 10 years for parole eligibility, to 15 years.

The judge also sentenced Panghali to three-and-a-half years for interfering with his wife's remains, to be served concurrently with his life sentence, the report said.

Last month, the court had convicted Mukhtiar Panghali of second-degree murder and interfering with bodily remains. 31-year-old Manjit was strangled and likely died before her body was burned.

The couple also had a daughter who was in preschool when her mother died.

NRIs don’t invest as much as they remit, says Montek

New Delh
The three-day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas ended here today, but not before the participants were sharply reminded of their poor record in investing in the country of their origin: Remittances from overseas Indians have grown over the years, but their share in foreign direct investment (FDI) remains poor, a little over 1 per cent of the total FDI.

There was a collective gasp in Vigyan Bhavan today when the normally soft-spoken and mild Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, told his audiences, “Get rid of the notion that we are after your money.”

Minister for Overseas Indians Affairs Vyalar Ravi confirmed while remittances from NRIs were double that of the FDI received last year, their share in the investment in the country was just 1.3 per cent. “ Please do not get angry with me,” said the minister apologetically as he rattled off figures to suggest that at the end of the last fiscal year in March, 2010, India had received Rs 1,23,377 crore worth of foreign direct investment out of which the share of investment made by NRIs was approximately Rs 1,250 crore.

The annual remittances —the money NRIs send to families back home — were Rs 2,50,000 crore in the year 2009-10, according to the World Bank Factbook-2011 on migration and remittances. This is said to be the highest inflow into any country and as much as a quarter of this sum is sent from the Middle East.

A woman banker from the UAE triggered the assault when she suggested, tactlessly, that India would not need NRI investment if only it could stop money laundering. That provoked Ahluwalia into saying that while money laundering was a global phenomenon, 95 per cent of investment in India was by domestic investors. “Frankly, if you think you would get better returns elsewhere, I would advise you to invest there.” “Those who decide to invest in India,” he quipped, “would have no reason to be unhappy about their decision 15 to 20 years from now.

The NRIs did point out the urgency to change archaic laws to reassure investors of the safety and security of their investment. Besides, they wanted their property here to be protected from land grabbers. They also raised issues like double taxation for those with business interests in the Gulf, and voting rights for NRIs. Vyalar Ravi, however, clarified that dual citizenship was only a remote possibilityand that the government was more keen to introduce a single Overseas Citizen India card.

President Pratibha Patil, who presented the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman awards to 14 overseas Indians, including New Zealand Governor General Anand Satyanand, Harinderpal Singh Banga (Hong Kong) and Upjit Singh Sachdeva (Liberia), among others, announced while delivering the valedictory address that the next mini-PBD would be held in Toronto. Calling upon every NRI to participate in at least one endeavour for building a better future for disadvantaged sections, she hoped that NRIs would be a vital resource in ensuring inclusive growth.

Buying house from NRIs can prove costly

Chandigarh, May 13
Purchasing real estate property in the city from nonresident Indians has turned out to be an inordinately expensive deal for at least five city residents. Not only have they paid land prices much higher than those prevailing in the market, they are now faced with the prospect of shelling out another hefty sum in taxes on the profits made by the NRI sellers as the latter have chosen to return to their foreign abodes without clearing income tax dues.
The IT department’s international taxation wing has identified five such properties in various areas of the city, including Sectors 8, 15 and 43, where the NRI owners did the “vanishing act” without clearing their profit tax dues.
According to section 195 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 the purchaser of a property from an NRI needs to deduct tax at source on the amount of the deal. So if the deal is for, say Rs 10 lakh, tax needs to be deducted by applying a percentage on Rs 1 lakh. However, since many taxpayers are not aware of this fact and live under the ignorance of the principle of the profit tax being paid by the person who makes the profit, they have not made the required deduction.
Talking to The Tribune, a senior income tax official said the department will no longer remain a “silent spectator” in such cases. “We’ve already sent notices under section 201 of the Income Tax Act to defaulters. Almost Rs 45 lakh along with interest will be recovered from those who had bought properties from NRIs in the city”, the official added.
According to section 201(1A) of the act, if a person is held responsible for nondeduction of tax as required under the act, he or she will be liable to pay simple interest at the rate prescribed under this section on the amount of such tax from the date on which such tax was deductible and up to the date on which such tax is actually paid. It may be mentioned that sections 201(1) and 201(1A) operate simultaneously.
However, most nonresident Indians are not aware their tax liability does not depend on their nationality but on their residential status. If someone spends less than 182 days in India during a financial year he or she is considered a nonresident for tax purposes. This means any income he earns outside India is not taxed in India but if he has made capital gains from rent in the country then he is supposed to pay tax to the income tax department. If he fails to do so the buyer will have to pay the dues. So next time you decide to buy property from an NRI remember to deduct the tax on the transaction at source.