Gujarat: Domestic help signs loan papers, gets marriage certificate instead!

VADODARA: Meena Parmar, a domestic help, always dreamt of owning a scooter so that she and her mother could ride to work in Vadodara from Padra daily and save transport expenses. When she was promised help by Karjan resident Vijay Parmar to get a vehicle loan in November 2017, she felt getting closer to her dream.
But a year later, the 22-year-old woman got a shock of her life on learning that she had been ‘officially’ married to Vijay.Instead of loan disbursal letter, she got a certificate stating that she was married to Vijay.
The man had allegedly took advantage of her poor education and duped her by taking signatures on marriage registration papers by saying that they were vehicle loan application papers.
The domestic maid’s woes did not end here. Her petition for divorce from Vijay was also recently turned down by the court on the grounds that she could not prove that she was cheated and the reasons for separation stated in the plea were not in accordance with the Hindu Marriage Act.
Meena and her mother had met Vijay at a wedding in October 2016 where he had introduced himself as a government loan agent. He promised her a vehicle loan at low interest rate. On November 10, 2017, Meena met Vijay at Narmada Bhavan on Jail Road where he made her sign and put her thumb impression on the application. However, she had no idea that the papers she signed were actually for marriage registration.
Neither Vijay liked Meena nor wanted to live with her, which put her further into a fix. Meena and her family searched for Vijay, but his relatives too were unaware about his whereabouts.
In her petition, she also claimed that police did not register her FIR of cheating.
The court of additional senior civil judge SG Chanchu turned down Meena’s case as her grounds for divorce were not in accordance with certain sections of Hindu Marriage Act. The court also concurred that she could not prove that she was cheated.
“The applicant has sought to annul the wedding under section 11 and section 5 of Hindu Marriage Act. But in her petition she is denying getting married as per section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act, so she cannot seek annulment under section 11,” the court stated in the order. Section 5 of the act refers to the conditions for a Hindu marriage and section 11 is about declaring a marriage null and void if certain clauses of section 5 are violated.
(Both names have been changed)