A great leap forward by Parrikar

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The amendment to the Law of Succession provides immense confidence in the women who are sexually exploited and cheated by the ‘males’ of the male-dominated society, to the children who are born with no fault of theirs and also the mentally challenged children who are born but totally neglected by the families. Now, all of them would be respected and treated in a humane manner.

Chief minister Manohar Parrikar deserves kudos. His first best step was the Dayanand Samajik Surakshan Yojana, when he was the CM in the last decade. His second best step in the Parivartan rule is the bill he has proposed to amend the Law of Succession.

In fact Goa should be thankful to our first chief minister Bhausaheb Bandodkar, who decided not to change the Portuguese Civil Code but to adopt it for Goa that gives equal rights to both men and women. The Law of Succession is part of this civil code. Unfortunately, the largest democracy in the world – India – has still not been able to bring in the Common Civil Code that provides real equality enshrined in the Constitution of India. But Goa has adopted and even implemented it as the part of our ‘culture’ since Portuguese days.

However, the Portuguese Civil Code had lots of lacunae. After Salazar was thrown out for the second time and a Republic was established permanently, the Portuguese Civil Code went into lots of progressive amendments. Unfortunately, Goa remained stuck to the ‘old’ Code and its laws. An attempt was made by Adv Ramakant Khalap when he was the union law minister 1997 to bring together the Portuguese and Indian judicial luminaries together, in order to also amend Goa’s Civil Code, besides extending the Code to the whole country.

Parrikar has now taken a leap forward by introducing a bill in the ongoing monsoon Assembly session to amend the Law of Succession. It not only gives right to property to the mentally challenged children but also to the so called ‘illegitimate’ children. There are instances where legal heirs of the property are ‘made mental’ in order to deny them property rights, especially when their parents die. But the children born out of wedlock were never considered for property rights.

This provision would bring a revolutionary change in the society, especially when a technology has developed to prove the legitimacy through DNA (N D Tiwari’s newly found son through DNA test is the latest example of it). This would not only provide protection to the children who are born out of extra-marital relations for no fault of theirs, but would also bring a ‘legal check’ on the males who could freely go for such extra-marital relations. Neither such children would have a so called social stigma nor would the males adopt a carefree exploitative nature.

Parrikar’s Dayanand Samajik Surakshan Yojana is not meant for only poor aged people but any aged person who is being humiliated and harassed (physically or mentally) by his or her children, who could be wealthiest and richest. The scheme gives immense confidence to these ‘poor’ parents as the government looks after them with a financial assistance that goes on increasing every year.

The amendment to the Law of Succession is the second step in the same direction. It provides immense confidence in the women who are sexually exploited and cheated by the ‘males’ of the male-dominated society, to the children who are born with no fault of theirs and also the mentally challenged children who are born but totally neglected by the families. Now, all of them would be respected and treated in a humane manner.

Of course, it would have been nice if the same Parrikar hadnot thought of the scheme like Laadli Laxmi, which offers official dowry to the bride, promotes expensive marriage ceremonies, encourages men to marry anybody for Rs one lakh and now also encourages MLAs to keep power in their hands to ‘certify’ these Laxmis. Parrikar, who has displayed his humane nature through this new bill amending Law of Succession, should definitely rethink of this ‘populist’ scheme of Laadli Laxmi.