New Delhi, Nov 16: To mitigate the hardships faced by Christian women in divorce matters, the Union Cabinet today initiated steps for bringing suitable changes in the outdated Indian Divorce Act, 1869, by approving the Indian Divorce (amendment) Bill, 2000 which will be introduced in Parliament during the winter session."Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley will introduce the amending Bill and have it passed in the ensuing winter session of Parliament," an official release said.As per Section 10 of the prevailing law, a Christian woman who seeks dissolution of her marriage is required to prove adultery and some other marital offences against her husband, whereas the man has to prove adultery only."This is clearly discriminatory against women and hence the Cabinet has decided to amend this Act," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan said after a Cabinet meeting.He said under Sections 17 and 20, a decree passed by a district court has to be confirmed by the High Court in case of the Christian community though in case of other communities, the decree by the district court is accepted.The amendment seeks to correct this and bring it in line with similar Acts applicable to other communities, Mahajan said.The amending Bill also seek to repeal three related laws The Indian and Colonial Divorce Act, 1928, The Indian and Colonial Divorce Act, 1940 and the Indian Divorce Act, 1945 - as these Acts have outlived their utility and become obsolete as per the recommendations of the P C Jain Commission Report on Review of Administrative Laws, the official release said.It said the then Law Minister had held a meeting of prominent leaders from the Christian community on April 28, 2000, to arrive at a consensus and introduce the Bill in the Budget session."Even though there were unanimity that the Bill should be introduced in Parliament, yet no agreement on certain specific provisions of the Bill could be arrived at," the release said.The High Courts of Madras, Calcutta, Bombay and Andhra Pradesh have come down heavily on the gender inequality in the matter of grounds of divorce as contained in Section 10 of the Indian Divorce Act, 1869.The then president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, Archbishop Alan de Lastic and several other persons had noted that many High Courts had declared the discriminatory provisions of the Act as "obsolete, antiquated and gender biased", the release said.These pronouncement of the High Courts had created a vacuum as it was not applicable in other states where there were sizeable Christian population, the release said adding that it has become necessary to bring in an uniform legislation.
