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WE ARE BACK

 

 

It gives us immense pleasure to intimate that we are back in our re-designed, fully automated, brand new office at house number 686, sector 11-B, Chandigarh-160011. We are no longer at our temporary office at house number 17, sector 9-A, Chandigarh since the 1st of June 2015.

Kindly accept our thanks for your consistent faith in us which has enabled us to grow faster and reach the milestones set, sooner than anticipated.

We look forward to a renewed, brighter, stronger, healthier and successful association whilst of course, awaiting your visit to our new premises.


Getting a hold on NRI weddings

With the increasing threat of desertions of Indian wives in NRI marriages, a high ministerial meeting took place to tackle the issue, came out with the decision, where all the registered marriages shall be reported to the Government. The reporting shall be done by all the State Registrars by the end of the month, to the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

Sushma Swaraj (Minister of External Affairs), Ravishankar Prasad (Law Minister), Maneka Gandhi (Women and Child Development Minister) and Officers of the Home and Immigration Departments were the attendees of the meeting.

An Integrated Nodal Agency comprising of Officers from the above mentioned Ministries would be put in place to deal with the problems of abandoned wives holistically, which would help women take their fight forward and get justice.

It was after the ministerial deliberations, on the report of a nine member committee of MEA, on NRI desertions, that these decisions were taken. The committee was chaired by Justice Arvind Goel (Retd.) and former Chairman of the Punjab NRI Commission. Two of its suggestions were immediately accepted and orders were given to put them into effect, which included the linking of information of registered marriages with the WCD website and the setting up of a Nodal Agency for speedy justice.

The committee did not stop here, it also suggested controlling the abandonment of women, by NRI husbands through compulsory registration of marriages and by impounding the passports of runaway NRI grooms.

An attempt to make the marriage registration mandatory would require legislative intervention since the matter is left to the state, being in the concurrent list.

At present, there is no central law in place to mandate compulsory registration of marriages in India. States like Punjab have state-level laws, which are not doing well whereas the Hindu Marriage Act is stressing on ceremonies and rituals to solemnize a marriage, which makes civil registration of marriages optional.

The experts say registration of marriages is the only way to get a hold on such NRI marriages, where otherwise the grooms provide no details of their jobs, passports and residence in India, making it easier for them to abandon their wives.

The information about the status of marriages is being described as the start of the long effort to end the abandonment of Indian women in NRI marriages and to make men accountable to their wives.

References

  1. Now, govt. to keep track on NRI weddings, ‘The Tribune’, 7th November, Tuesday, 2017 available at http://epaper.tribuneindia.com/1421189/The-Tribune/TT_07_November_2017#page/16/2
  2. NRI marital disputes: Govt to collect data of all registered marriages, ‘The Indian Express’, 6th November, 2017, available at http://indianexpress.com/article/india/nri-marital-disputes-govt-to-collect-data-of-all-registered-marriages-4925692/
  3. States told to share marriage registration data with center, ‘Hindustantimes’, 6th November, available at http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/states-told-to-share-marriage-registration-data-with-centre/story-2miEqDL7tdgYbuxjEn8IoO.html
  4. Abandoned NRI wives: Indian government to collect data of all registered marriages, ‘SBS’, 7th November, 2017, available at http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/hindi/en/article/2017/11/07/abandoned-nri-wives-indian-government-collect-data-all-registered-marriages

 


SMA Legal has been listed among the 50+ high quality law firms in India by the India Business Law Journal in their April, 2013 issue.

“Four years of working with tight budgets have made in-house counsel at companies both inside and outside India acutely aware of the need to get value for money from their legal advisers. At the same time, the complexities of doing business in India demand that legal advisers should be of the highest possible caliber and that their expertise should be well attuned to the nature of the task at hand.

India benefits from a rich and diverse legal market, but while some in-house counsel and foreign law firms already make
good use of the diversity of services on offer, many others are unaware of the sheer depth and breadth of the legal market, particularly when it comes to small and mid-size Indian law firms.

With this in mind, India Business Law Journal introduces 50+ high quality law firms that prospective clients and referral
partners would do well to know about. In our April issue, we will repeat the exercise for intellectual property firms. The value of such information cannot be underestimated: after using the services of Shantanu Mohan at SMA Legal for six months, the chief sales officer of a European project management and consulting company says “we should have
called him earlier … [he] does not waffle and gets to the heart of our problems”.

The European executive chose to work with SMA Legal – a five-lawyer firm in Chandigarh – after speaking to “big law firms in Mumbai”, finding that “their rates seemed excessive” and hearing that SMA Legal “are loyal to their clients and are not afraid to challenge big players”

 


About

SMA Legal is a boutique Legal Advisory Firm that specializes in high profile cases involving large Indian corporations, International companies with business interests in India, distinguished individuals & country missions to India.         Read More

Case Studies

With over 21 years of experience, SMA Legal has successfully handled high profile cases in the areas of India Business Advisory, Arbitration & Conciliation, Investigation Services, Corporate & Commercial Law and NRI Services. Read More

We Rebranded!

We have renamed our organization from Shantanu Mohan & Associates to SMA Legal, effective 2nd April’12. The rebranding exercise is a part of a bigger vision to establish ourselves as India’s leading boutique legal advisory firm.   Read More

Corporate Profile and Fact Sheet

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