Ch 5-2. Section 2. Important terms in PWDVA

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Similar to how we discussed CrPC 125, I will list its important sections (not all) which are often used to extort maintenance, harass men, and their families. This will be of help in preparing for how to handle the DV cases filed by wife. The full DV Act is given in Appendix B as a reference.

From Definitions Section of PWDVA, I produce below selected sections, followed by my comments on how it may be important for you.

2 (a) "aggrieved person" means any woman who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent and who alleges to have been subjected to any act of domestic violence by the respondent;

Comment: Your wife is the "aggrieved person", aggrieved because of the alleged domestic violence.

2 (e) "domestic incident report" means a report made in the prescribed form on receipt of a complaint of domestic violence from an aggrieved person;

Also, a domestic incident report or DIR needs to be filed which will contain precise details of violence committed. Since it mentions prescribed form for DIR, that format of DIR is given in the DV Rules. It's in PDF format with tables so can't be included in the appendix. But a direct link to download is given below:

PWDVA Rules, 2006

2 (q). "respondent" means any adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person and against whom the aggrieved person has sought any relief under this Act:

Comment: You will be termed as the respondent. Usually the terms petitioner (one filing petition) and respondent (on whom the petition is filed) are used in civil cases. PWDVA is a mostly civil law with provision for arrest and punishment in jail only for violation of protection order. I haven't though heard of single case about someone being accused of violating the protection order and being jailed for that. Anyway we will visit that later.

update201704: An Oct 2016 Supreme Court judgment in HIRAL P. HARSORA AND ORS vs 'KUSUM NAROTTAMDAS HARSORA AND ORS - SC 2016 has removed the necessity of respondent being an adult or a male, by finding it against constitutional provisions specifically Article 14 which guarantees equality before law. The SC judgment has held that by necessitating the respondent to be an adult and a male means that other women (apart from wife) in shared household for whose protection also the PWDVA was intended to be passed, will have no recourse to file a case and get relief from domestic violence. Hence, the requirement of respondent being an adult male has been removed and the words "adult male" are deleted from Section 2(q) of the PWDVA.

Possible disadvantage of judgment for husband and his female relatives in same household:

Until this SC judgment, the DV Act allowed for complaint to be filed only against an adult male of the household, and whether other females could also be included as respondents along with adult male(s) was interpreted differently in different judgments, because the basic definition of word respondent included only adult males under Section 2(q) of the act. It was understood that including female relatives' names was a civil version of IPC 498A tradition of including maximum number of husband's relatives in complaint with a view towards negotiating quick and fact settlement for divorce. With that requirement being removed, it would be possible for a wife to file complaint against mother and sister(s) of husband without even having husband's name as a respondent, and ask for the same reliefs as are being claimed from husbands till now. However, practically speaking this is not a major disadvantage since husband's name is always kept as the first respondent, since the expectation under various laws on maintenance as well as mindset in society is that it is the husband who should be liable to pay maintenance and other similar reliefs to wife and not other members of household like his father, mother, sister etc.

Possible advantage of this judgment for female relatives of husband in same household:

With this amendment to DV Act, cases under DV Act can be filed and reliefs claimed by any woman (wife, mother, sister, daughter, daughter-in-law) against any other male or female residing in the shared household. This opens up the possibility of utilizing DV Act by husband's mother or sister(s) who may have to face abuse and violence at the hands of daughters-in-law and similar situations in a household. Earlier a wife could ask for protection order against husband and his female relatives too. With this amendment by SC, the female relatives of husband are made on par with the wife, because they are also allowed to file complaint with allegations of DV done on them by the wife. Apart from that, this amendment by Supreme Court will not be of direct use to husbands who are facing cases under DV Act from wives. In case mother of any husband has faced DV from daughter in law, she could file a complaint under DV Act against daughter-in-law, which can run as a separate case on its own. But the husband will still have to face the cases filed by wife, since each case runs independently in court on its own merits and based on its own evidences, arguments etc. Even if a mother files a case against daughter-in-law and gets some reliefs, the husband will still have to fight his own cases where he is made party as respondent. One should keep that perspective in mind, and not fall into the trap of "what counter-cases I can file and quickly get out of this mess" mentality. This counter-case mindset is favourite escape plan of people with little knowledge of law who then also get misled by some lawyers.

2 (i) "Magistrate" means the Judicial Magistrate of the first class, or as the case may be, the Metropolitan Magistrate, exercising jurisdiction under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974) in the area where the aggrieved person resides temporarily or otherwise or the respondent resides or the domestic violence is alleged to have taken place;

Comment: DV cases have to be tried in magistrate courts (criminal) and cannot be tried in family courts unlike CrPC 125 cases which are a must to be tried in family courts wherever they exist as per Family Courts Act, 1984.

(k) "monetary relief" means the compensation which the Magistrate may order the respondent to pay to the aggrieved person, at any stage during the hearing of an application seeking any relief under this Act, to meet the expenses incurred and the losses suffered by the aggrieved person as a result of the domestic violence;

Comment: Unlike CrPC 125, DV Act gives lot of possibilities to claim not just maintenance amount, but compensation etc of various kinds based on domestic violence claimed. It's very important to deny forcefully all allegations of domestic violence and give counter-allegations if any of wife's unreasonable departure with no good reason, and her false case threats, suicide threats, domestic violence on you/your parents, whichever are applicable in your case.

(n) "Protection Officer" means an officer appointed by the State Government under sub-section (1) of section 8;

(o) "protection order" means an order made in terms of section 18;

Comment: Protection order basically means an order on respondent not to commit domestic violence. A protection officer is a government officer (can be police officer) whose responsibilities are defined under the DV Act and DV Rules.

(q) "respondent" means any adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person and against whom the aggrieved person has sought any relief under this Act:

Comment: This is an important point. Usually the DV complaint is filed against the husband and a domestic relationship anyway exists between them. But sometimes the woman may try to file it on husband's brother or father too. In case the husband's brother or father do not stay with him and the wife, then the fact of domestic relationship of brother or father with the complainant can itself be challenged.

(r) "service provider" means an entity registered under sub-section (1) of section 10;

Comment: Basically refers to the NGO and other entities given authority to help domestic violence victims.

(s) "shared household" means a household where the person aggrieved lives or at any stage has lived in a domestic relationship either singly or along with the respondent and includes such a household whether owned or tenanted either jointly by the aggrieved person and the respondent, or owned or tenanted by either of them in respect of which either the aggrieved person or the respondent or both jointly or singly have any right, title, interest or equity and includes such a household which may belong to the joint family of which the respondent is a member, irrespective of whether the respondent or the aggrieved person has any right, title or interest in the shared household.

Comment: Shared household is a very important concept, because a complainant wife can claim residence inside the shared household under the relief of residence order. Immediately after coming into operation of DV Act in Oct, 2006, Supreme Court had to pass a judgment in Dec, 2006 in Batra versus Batra case to clarify that shared household will not include house of husband's parents where the wife may have stayed for a few days only. It is very common in Delhi especially that women will try to occupy the in-laws' residence even if husband doesn't stay there. There is absolutely no right given to wife under DV Act to claim in-laws' house as her residing place under DV Act unless that was her usual or permanent residence. One just has to fight back against such tactics by wives.

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