This case study is of a girl Mrs. Poonam aged about 30 years. She was a Masters in computer science and was a brilliant student. She got married to Mr. Pankaj, 4 years ago without her parents’ consent. He was struggling with his life at that time. Afterwards he got good opportunities in the field of singing. T hey both were living a happy married life in Canada. After few years she came back to India and he started his carrier in Canada. After a year when she tried to contact her husband, most of the time he ignored her calls and started ignoring her. She felt something is wrong. Whenever she tried to enquire about him he used to give excuses that he is practicing for his song. Mrs. Poonam used to believe him all the time. Few months later she went to Canada herself. She started observing him. A day came when she got to know that she is expecting. She told her in laws and her husband too, but he refused to accept the child and forced her to have an abortion. When Mrs. Poonam refused to do so, he started abusing her all the time and used to say that this child will be a stone of his path. The father in law of Mrs. Poonam suggested her to abort the child for sake of her husband. She relied on his words and went for abortion. Again the same story repeats and the husband use to stay out for months. After two years Mrs. Poonam got to know about the extra marital affair of her husband. She talked to her husband regarding this, and as usual he refused all contentions of his wife. In 2005 they both came to India. It was the second time when Mrs. Poonam conceived and at that time she was in India, Mr. Pankaj refused to accept that it was his child, he started blaming her that in his absence another man comes into her room to make sexual relations with her whenever he goes to Canada and forced her to do have an abortion but she refused and tried to convince him that she is not at fault. Nobody believed on her. The entire family forced her to have an abortion. On her continued refusal for abortion Pankaj used to beat her harshly. It was trimester period of her pregnancy when Mr. Pankaj kicked her in abdomen. She was in a severe pain and finally she got missed miscarriage. The story did not ended here, Mr. Pankaj still used to stay out for months and many a times Mrs. Poonam read conversation of Mr. Pankaj with his girlfriend sending each other nudes and many more. After this Mrs. Poonam was beaten all days and finally she left for her maternal home. With the support of her parents specially her father she filed domestic violence case against her husband. After knowing about the complaint Mr. Pankaj started making calls to her, admitting his guilt and apologizing for his misconduct moreover he promised her that he will take her with him to Canada. But Poonam still stood on her feet and after a great hassle in the court she got the case in her favour and granted with the residential rights. She too got the maintenance of Rs. 25000/- per month.
Monnishaa Mahajan, Principal Attorney at Legal Help NRI. Monnishaa has an experience of more than 15 years in assisting and advising NRI's in resolving their disputes in India.