Congress Lok Sabha member from Patiala Preneet Kaur on Wednesday wrote to Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar, raising the issue of the increasing number of cases of contract marriage fraud for getting Canadian permanent resident status.
Ms. Kaur urged the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to work closely with the Canadian High Commissioner and the Canadian government to look into and solve the crisis.
She sought the setting up of a commission to assess the scale of the fraud and its volume and analyse the number of cases. She asked the Ministry to develop a method to investigate such cases and recommended establishing a mechanism to deport people defrauding innocent citizens through fake marriage to redress the injustice encountered by victims.
Underlining her concern towards the imploding crisis, especially in the wake of the prevailing economic condition, which is forcing people to relocate to foreign lands to seek education or employment or to be with their families, she pointed out that the “allure of attaining a permanent residence in Canada has facilitated a few greedy people to take advantage of innocent Indian citizens and fraud them of large amounts of money through contract marriages and marriage fraud.”
“This has led to substantial financial losses for many families resulting in despair and depression, even compelling people to commit suicide in some cases,” she added.
