New Delhi: Sparring couples may now have a way out of their misery without having to go through the blame game. The Cabinet on Thursday is expected to consider a proposal to amend matrimonial laws for making irretrievable breakdown of marriage a ground for divorce. The proposal moved by law ministry suggests amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act,1955, and Special Marriage Act,1954, to add the new basis for granting divorce. Breakdown of marriage is currently not a ground for divorce despite several Supreme Court verdicts favouring it and the Law Commission recommending that it be included in the provision of the law.
The amendment will enable couples to get divorce if one of them refuses to live with the other and will not work towards reconciliation, and the court is convinced that there is no hope of the two leading a normal matrimonial life. The legal fraternity seems to be split over the proposed amendment. Some experts feel that growing individuality in society has contributed to an increasing number of cases ending at the divorce court with both parties dishing out dirty laundry. The amendment would make parting of ways less bitter.
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Govt agrees to cut down stamp duty
Hyderabad: The state government has in principle agreed to reduce stamp duty from 7% to 5% after taking into consideration various factors,including the enhancement of land value in commercial areas and tier-II cities across the state. Stamps minister Gade Venkat Reddy said on Wednesday that officials of the stamps and registration department were readying proposals to reduce the stamp duty keeping in mind the revenue targets set for the department in the budget. The minister said the registration charges were periodically reduced from 13.5 per cent to 11 per cent and then to 9.5 per cent since August 2005 under pressure from the Centre,which wanted a uniform stamp duty of 5% across the country. However, the transfer fee (2%) and registration fee (0.5%) would remain the same.
He said there was delay in making formal announcement in this regard as department had an ambitious target of Rs 3,546 crore, keeping in mind the revenue loss it was likely to suffer in the wake of reduction in stamp duty this year. Last year, the stamps and registration departments collections were around Rs 2,500 crore against a projection of Rs 3,224 crore, the minister said.
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Law soon to allow class action suit for huge damages: Moily
Taking the Bhopal gas tragedy verdict and the paltry compensation for victims as a huge lesson, law minister Veerappa Moily has proposed a radical law that would bind corporate bodies with vicarious liability both under criminal and civil laws and allow class action suit to be brought against them. Our courts are very conservative in awarding damages to victims in situations like Bhopal gas disaster. How can one apply accident claim criteria in such situations. We do not want charity from the courts and so want to empower the victims to bring in class action suits to claim adequate damages against corporate bodies held responsible for such catastrophes, he said. In law, a class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit where a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or where a class of defendants are being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the US, but has been embraced by other countries. In several European countries with civil laws different from the English common law principle (which is used by US courts), changes have in recent years been made that allow consumer organisations to bring claims on behalf of large groups of consumers. What is more radical in the proposed law is that it would allow vicarious criminal liability on companies for acts of negligence and deficient actions leading to loss of human lives.
The minister said there was an urgent need to codify the Tort Laws in India as we do not have a law to fasten liability on corporate bodies. He also underlined the serious deficiency in the Public Liability Insurance Act which needed to be addressed quickly to allow fastening of unlimited liability on corporate bodies that were responsible for disasters involving death and injury to large number of persons. Moily said that to punish the convicts in the Bhopal case under Section 304A was a travesty of justice, and that there was an urgent need to frame a new law to bring to book the culprits and provide heavy punishment.
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(source-toi)
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