Ch 5-17. Section 27 – Jurisdiction, Section 28

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Section 27. Jurisdiction

(1) The court of Judicial Magistrate of the first class or the Metropolitan Magistrate, as the case may be, within the local limits of which-

(a) the person aggrieved permanently or temporarily resides or carries on business or is employed; or

(b) the respondent resides or carries on business or is employed; or

shall be the competent court to grant a protection order and other orders under this Act and to try offences under this Act.

(2) Any order made this Act shall be enforceable throughout India.

Comment: DV Act again is very favourable to women, and is cleverly worded to include even possibility of filing a case where a woman has temporary residence. Sometimes people report that wife has filed a case from so and so place but she doesn't live there actually. She may have a relative in that city and for whatever reasons she has filed case from that city to harass the husband.

Fortunately, there is Delhi high court judgment which has addressed this 'flexible' wording in the act, and has struck down on the meaning of temporary residence to mean flexibly any kind of temporary visiting place by the woman.

It was argued that in view of the judgment of this Court in Sarat Kumar Pandey Vs. Mamta Pandey (2010) IV AD (Cre) DHC 565, the court of MM would have no jurisdiction to entertain the application since the applicant had hired a room in the hotel only for the purpose of invoking jurisdiction of Delhi Court.

So if your wife has filed a case from a city where she doesn't reside normally, you can file an objection based on lack of jurisdiction and get it dismissed. She may still be allowed to file it from her usual place of residence, but you will have one additional evidence to produce to whichever court she files in later, that her intention is more about harassing you than about claiming relief from alleged domestic violence.

Section 28. Procedure of trial

Section 28 - Procedure.

(1) Save as otherwise provided in this Act, all proceedings under sections 12, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 and offences under section 31 shall be governed by the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974).

(2) Nothing in sub-section (1) shall prevent the court from laying down its own procedure for disposal of an application under section 12 or under sub-section (2) of section 23.

Comment: So the PWDVA is part-civil in nature in the sense that it's all about granting money and compensation and not necessarily jailing the respondent (except upon violation of protection order which hasn't been heard so far). On the other hand, the procedures and processes to be followed for maintenance order are by referring to CrPC 125, and this section extends it to overall CrPC too.

However, it gives freedom to magistrate to lay down own procedure in case of sub-section 23(2) which is for grant of ex-parte order.

Below is link to a very important judgment of Karnataka high court which must be used by all to make a submission to magistrate that a summary trial must be done to go through the allegations of domestic violence etc, before passing an interim order or final order. This is applicable to all cases where summons have already been issues to respondent.

Interim relief under DV Act cannot be granted without conducting inquiry as per CrPC summons case - Karnataka HC

Note that above is applicable even for interim orders including interim maintenance order.

<< Prev Ch 5-16. Section 25 - Duration and alteration of orders, Section 26 - Multiple proceedings

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Next >> Ch 5-18. Section 29 - Appeal, Section 31 - Jail term on violation of protection order

Section 27. Jurisdiction

Section 28. Procedure of trial

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