Around 4189 complaints of distressed Indian women deserted by their NRI spouses have been addressed between January 2016 and November 2018. There are various ways to give relief to the wives deserted by their NRI husbands. The Ministry of External Affairs provides counseling, information about legal procedures and guidance mechanisms for serving judicial summons on the Overseas Indian husband; filing a judicial case in India, issuing Look out Circulars; revocation and impounding of Indian passport of the husband to such aggrieved women. To provide financial and legal assistance to distressed women married to NRI spouses, the Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) Guidelines were revised in September, 2017. The amount of legal & financial assistance has also been increased to US$ 4000 per case. Presently violence against women manifests in many forms. Desertion by their NRI husbands is an emergent and unique form of violence against women. Marriages are considered as a sacrosanct institution that ties not only two individuals but also two families. At present with emerging trends of globalization, where a huge number of people have ties to networks of people and places across the globe, people are gradually marrying across national boundaries. Same way the NRI marriage is an alliance that exists between the two continents which naturally involves two different and sometime contrasting legal systems, the process of NRI marriages more complicated as there has been significant rise in the cases of fraudulent marriages of which brides are the major victims.NRI marriages are performed in a great hustle without proper enquiry about the particulars of the bridegrooms and the result is many of these NRIs are already married and have children or there is a big gap in age. The number of deserted women by NRI husbands is very large and is on the rise. The problems are more serious in Doaba and Majha region of the Punjab because a larger number of Punjabis from these two regions are settled abroad. In many matrimonial advertisements relating to NRI marriages the basic human qualities, honesty and other values are fully ignored. On the contrary it seems as if such advertisements are more of a kind of business propositions wherein you are required to give your girl in consideration of green card. Parents do not enquire much about the family and the background of the grooms. They readily accept the proposal of NRI marriage and even force their daughters to accept the proposal for the socio-economic benefits of settling abroad, even many a time it has been seen that the girls are very keen to marry an NRI and go abroad. The ravenousness of dollar and the desire to settle family members in foreign countries; these are the root causes foremost to such marriages. The recent directive for the registration of all Non Resident Indian (NRI) marriages solemnized in India within a week has brought hope to all those concerned with growing cases of women abandoned by their NRI husbands. Details of such marriages will be sent to the Ministry by all States to help it generate and maintain a central database. This will make it possible for the Centre to retract passport and visa of those who do not comply with the directive, and pave the way for deterrent action. The suspension of passport results in annulling the visa of these NRI men. It leads to the withdrawal of all legal grounds of the stay of such men in foreign countries and the facilities and rights they enjoy thereof. With the intervention of Indian embassies, they will get a one-time chance to come back India. The Indian government is planning to collect data on all registered marriages to make NRI grooms more accountable and curb instances of desertion of wives in a foreign country.
A high-level committee set up to research and formulate guidelines for safeguarding the rights of NRI wives had recommended last year that NRIs who hassle and desert their wives could face severe punishment, including cancellation of passport. There are few recommendations that there should be a national commission for NRIs and a state fund for the rehabilitation of such women. The embassies should be given a statistics, warning them against such grooms. Even intelligence agencies should pitch in with cases where the husband manages to get another passport issued. The ministry of external affairs has to play a more vigorous role in getting such men extradited to India. The passport manual have the endowment for revoking or suspending passports of NRI husbands who have been declared proclaimed offenders, or are facing arrest warrants. They stance a risk to both India and the country they are living in.