Passports of 45 NRIs have been cancelled and impounded for abandoning their wives, revealed Union Women and Child Development minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday.
The passports were cancelled by the Integrated Nodal Agency — chaired by WCD secretary Rakesh Srivastava — formed last May to look into such cases. The passports were cancelled after Lookout Circulars sent to the men elicited no response. Consequently, their passports were impounded by the Ministry of External Affairs. The men, however, are still absconding.
Due to rising number of such complaints, the MEA had formed a portal where women can lodge online complaints about husbands abroad who abandoned them after an inter-country marriage. Between January 2015 and November 2017, 3,328 complaints of NRI marriages were lodged with the Centre. Between 2012 and 2015, 203 cases of fraudulent marriages have been also taken up by the MEA in 12 Indian missions abroad.
