By Our Reporter
Shillong: The Maitsh-aphrang Movement (MSM) has urged the legislators to brainstorm the Meghalaya Compulsory Registration of Marriage Bill, 2011 before legislating it into an act.
“We don’t want the government to pass a weak and ineffective marriage law in the Assembly and to score political brownie points by passing the marriage act just because the elections are knocking at the doors,” MSM convener Michael Syiem said on Wednesday.
Syiem said, “If a weak marriage bill is passed then the people should construed that it is nothing but a political gimmick.”
The Cabinet recently approved the proposed Meghalaya Compulsory Registration of Marriage Bill, 2011 which is schedule to be introduced in the forthcoming autumn session of the Assembly.
Pointing to the Meghalaya Benami Transaction Prohibition Act and the Meghalaya Lokayukta and Up-Lokayukta Act that were passed by the Meghalaya Assembly, Syiem said these Acts were not “stringent enough as legislators did not debate it before legislating them into laws.”
According to Syiem, even if the Marriage Bill is passed during the current year, the same would come into effect only from 2016 as the government has to create mass awareness about the compulsory registration of marriages.
The MSM leader said family courts should be setup besides the law on compulsory registration of marriage.
He also suggested that powers to register should be decentralised at the block level.
Syiem also expressed concern over inequitable distribution of self-acquired and ancestral wealth with a demand from the government to frame a bill on the equitable distribution of the same. Citing an example in Garo Hills, Syiem said when there is no daughter in the family, the family has to adopt a girl child to inherit property while the men do not get any share while in the Khasi Hills, he said, the clan would come to take over the ancestral property in case of absence of a girl child. Further, he said the age-old custom and tradition where the youngest daughter in the family (Khatduh) is the “custodian” of ancestral property has now been diluted in view of a court order.
“The high court order had stated that the youngest daughter is the sole-inheritor of ancestral property which is totally against our custom and tradition,” Syiem said. (With inputs from UNI)