Critical Reforms Needed in Indian Judiciary: Navigating Dating, Gender-Neutral Abuse Laws, and Streamlining Divorce Procedures by 2025

Young Men and Women, Beware! When you swipe right on a matrimony or dating app, are you fully aware of the legal implications? This article sheds light on the need for significant judicial reforms in India, particularly in the context of dating and divorce.

Part I - Dating Challenges:

Young Indian men must exercise caution in today's age. Men are treated as inferior in the eyes of Indian law.

If a couple dates and she breaks up, and if the guy has been innocent and not gotten intimate yet, she can still file a complaint under Section 375 IPC and 69 against the ex-boyfriend. She can claim the guy was intimate with her on the false promise of marriage. She doesn't need solid proof to drag the man around the police station for a few years until the complaint gets dismissed.

If a couple instead proceeds with dating, live-in, and then breaks up, she can file, in addition to the 2 sections above, a Domestic Violence Case for mental abuse. Again, she doesn't need solid proof to let the complaint bake in the police station before it gets dismissed.

If the couple marries and gets separated, in addition to the above 3 sections, she can file a 498A too. Best of luck to men dealing with 4 complaints against them, each from a different angle.

Here is the climax: if a man gets abused emotionally or physically by the woman in any of the above three scenarios, the man can't file a complaint. The police refuse to even take a complaint. They laugh at you and ask you to leave.

Simple Reform is needed here. Men must be allowed to file an abuse complaint against women, just like a woman can against a man. Police and courts must not differentiate. Also without solid proof, police must dismiss the complaint within a month after filing the complaint wheover filed it in the first place.

Part II - Abuse Has No Gender!

Abuse has become gender-neutral. We have seen cases where women have abused men in the past few years. So the laws too must be gender-neutral. Men can't feed a young infant with breast milk. So it makes sense for the woman to get custody of a young infant if both the man and woman are equally capable of divorce. Except in such cases, laws must be gender-neutral around marriage, love, live-in, violence, and abuse.

For example, what happens if there is domestic violence of a man in marriage? What happens if the man earns less, is a father, and the woman is the abuser of the child - shouldn't the woman pay for child custody? If a man and a woman are in a live-in where the man doesn't earn, and the woman is working, and they break up, shouldn't the man get maintenance from the woman post-breakup?

Reform that is needed here is simple - search for the word woman in Indian Law Books. Re-examine, reverse the gender roles, and if it still feels fair, make such laws gender-neutral.

Even in the latest 2023 law amendments, https://vakilsearch.com/blog/new-rules-for-divorce-in-india-in-2023/, we still see 12 instances of the word wife. What if the same happens to the husband?

Until this is done, we will see a rising trend of men abstaining from dating or marriage or moving abroad to find their life partner. There have been lakhs of innocent men who have been unfairly gone through mental stress around Police and courts in the past few years. Talk to any police. He will confirm what I am saying. Though laws were brought in to protect women, few women, unfortunately, are abusing the law itself for their personal gain.

Part III - Divorce Takes Eons!

For post-marriage, for both men and women, the legal system for getting a divorce is flawed.

A crucial step is skipped by judges often, and not many know about this in the divorce process. It is already written in law but due to the overload of work on judges, they skip it.

Today what happens - Either the husband or wife or the lawyers of the married couple attend the divorce hearing. Either the husband or wife is usually absent. The lawyer of whoever is absent usually asks for more time. The judge grants it. This technique is used by the opposing party to buy time forever. So much time passes by, the person who wants a divorce ends up giving 70% of his property to the one who doesn't want a divorce to comply. This is used as a money extortion mechanism by the abuser (usually the one who doesn't want a divorce). So the one who got abused and filed a case and wants a divorce has to wait for many years and lose 70% of their property before they are granted a divorce. Note that it is quite possible that the abuser is already rich or financially well-off; still, the abused ends up paying to get a divorce sooner.

Even if both parties mutually attend and want a divorce, the judge postpones usually 3-6 times and it can take 1-2 years before granting a divorce.

Judges know the right approach to take to speed it up. They don't since they are asked to complete few hundreds of cases per day. They can't be blamed. Here is the problem why there is a dearth of the judges.

Budget and choice for the Appointment of judges need government approval. This statement itself needs a reform. How can courts be autonomous if the ruling party decides who to appoint and how much to pay?

Amendment 1 -

Courts already receive funds from court fees. This fund must not be sent to the government cashier. It must remain with SC corporate account to be used for salaries and expenses of the department.

Amendment 2 -

Courts can collect extra fees if needed from upper-middle-class and rich divorce cases when divorce gets granted. The same fees can be used to fund the judiciary.

Amendment 3 -

The appointment of judges is a pure SC and HC decision. The government must not be involved.

Amendment 4 -

The appointment of judges - candidates' list - the reasoning and the procedures - must be made public just like we already have court proceedings available online live now.

These 4 amendments won't cost the government extra fees and, in fact, less work for them. These four must be part of judicial reforms 2025.

How would this help? These funds and clean appointment process would see an influx of new judges into the system. If each judge is not under pressure to dispose of 100s per day, they will do the due diligence for each divorce case. Here is how the process would look -

The judge should mandate both man and woman to be there for each hearing. If they can't, they should be on zoom or in ICU. There is no other excuse. If they can't and unable to attend thrice and the judge doesn't seem anything suspicious, divorce should be granted right away. If parties do attend, the judge would inquire separately, husband and wife, and even together if needed in private and then if he feels there is no hope of reconciliation, grant divorce. If not, the judge should mention the reason when there is a postponement. Judges already know this, and they would follow it if they are given ample time to make informed quick decisions. In short, increase the number of judges by removing government hurdles; divorce process would be fair and smooth for all parties. Justice on time is Justice served. Often delayed justice makes the couple too old to get matches by the time divorce is granted. They also loose hope in marriage given how long it took to get out and hence decide to remain single and lonely for life. This isn't a healthy trend.

In short, this is an administration fixture not a legal law fixture.

Conclusion: These reforms aim to restore balance and fairness to the legal processes surrounding dating, abuse, and divorce in India. For those interested in supporting these changes or proposing additional reforms, please email your support to [email protected]. Public support will be crucial in presenting these reforms to the Parliamentary Standing Committee for review and consideration. Note that I am not a lawyer or a judge but a loved one of mine is. So if there are any mistakes I made in this article regarding the procedures or statistics, please email me, I can correct them. My intent is to make life easy for those who believe in love in India. I don't intend to talk against marriage or woman or dating or government.

Signing Off - One who Cares for the Indian Heart and Dares to Speak!

Just mentioning few names so that they pay attention. National Judicial Reforms Council , Divorce and Separation Support Groups , Dating Words of Wisdom , Supreme Court of India