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Domestic Violence Cases
Domestic Violence Cases
Domestic violence is not limited to those who are spouses or partners; it may
also comprise multiple ties that an individual is bound by inside a family. In
India, for instance, the legal component has given it a broader connotation,
including sisters, widows, moms, single women, and any woman residing in the
same family. As a result, domestic violence covers both intimate partners and
family members. According to Section 3 of the Protection of Women from
Domestic Violence Act of 2005 (DV Act), any act or omission by the Respondent
that damages, injures, threatens, or abuses physically, sexually, verbally, or
economically constitutes domestic violence.
According to the Union Health Ministry’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS-
4), every third woman in India encounters some sort of domestic abuse from
the age of fifteen. It also said that 31% of married women have experienced
physical, sexual, or emotional torture at the hands of their partners. The main
concern is that only around 10% of these women reported violence. Clearly, this
is a big issue that must be addressed, and women must understand their rights
as well as how to defend them. To address such incidents, the Protection of
Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005 was enacted.
Sexual violence
Sexual violence is a type of physical force that involves any act in which a
woman is compelled to engage in any undesired, dangerous, or demeaning
sexual behavior. It includes calling her names, harming her by using objects
and weapons during sex, and even forcing her to have sex by a spouse or
intimate partner with whom she has consensual sex.
Physical violence
Physical violence is the use of physical force against a woman so that she
sustains bodily harm or injury. Physical assault, criminal intimidation (threaten
to cause harm), and criminal force (use force against a person to injure
him/her) in the form of beating, stomping, punching, abandoning the aggrieved
party in a dangerous place, using weapons to intimidate her, pressuring her to
leave her matrimonial home, injuring her children, using physical force in sexual
situations, and so on.
Emotional violence
Not all abusive relationships are violent and result in physical harm. Many
women are subjected to emotional abuse, which is as damaging as physical
violence. It involves loud names calling, accusing, isolating, scaring, displaying
domineering behaviour, insulting or constantly criticising her.
Economic violence
Economic violence is defined as, a woman not being supplied with enough
money by her spouse to support herself and her children by purchasing clothes,
food, medications, and so on. It also involves prohibiting women from working.
Apart from that, forcibly evicting her from her home by not paying her rent,
denying her of financial resources to which she is entitled under any custom or
law, and limiting her access to shared domestic resources also come under this
category. It also involves selling or alienating her movable or immovable assets,
jewellery, shares, stocks, and other items in which she has a stake.
As a result, many times, elderly parents and other relatives are wrongly
accused of physically and emotionally tormenting the so-called victim,
producing unnecessary tension that may result in bad health for the elderly
parents and physical and mental pain for the accused’s family members.
Even if the charge is proven false, the accused is humiliated by the society. Poor
and uneducated women may have endured the torment of their husband’s
family, but many educated women now use this conduct for illegal motives.
In this instance, the Appellant was in a live-in relationship, with whom she had
a kid. When the couple got separated, the Appellant sought support from her
spouse, for which the Gumla Family Court allowed, giving her Rs 2000 per
month and Rs 1000 to her child. The Appellant filed an appeal in the High Court,
which found the family court’s ruling to be incorrect and ruled in favour of the
partner. The Appellant then went to the Supreme Court.
It was also observed by the Court that domestic violence, according to the
provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, also includes economic abuse.
One day, she was tortured physically and mentally to the point of fainting in her
matrimonial home, but no doctor was called for her medical checkup.
Sunita Malik was threatened by her mother and brother-in-law with death and
kidnapping unless she compelled her parents to sell their property in Hauz Qazi.
As a result, it was discovered that the Complainant, Sunita Mailk, was treated
cruelly and physically tortured by her husband and in-laws. Sunita Malik was
harassed in order to force her or anyone associated with her to meet an illegal
requirement for movable and immovable property.
The Bombay High Court ruled that Section 2(q) of the aforementioned Act
should be read in light of the definitions contained in Sections 2(a), 2(f), and
2(s) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act. Essentially, this
assured that a complaint could be lodged against female family members as
well as the “adult male member.” However, a complaint alleging domestic abuse
cannot be brought primarily against the female members of the household. A
co-Respondent must be an adult male. As a result, the Court did not read down
the term “adult male person.” After this the mother and daughter duo filed a
writ petition in the Supreme Court.
The HC similarly took a similar stance, deleting R2 and R3’s names from the
proceedings and ordering the Appellant to quit the matrimonial home. Hence
this appeal was made.
“In our view, the Delhi High Court has also rightly held that even if a wife, who
had shared a household in the past, but was no longer doing so when the Act
came into force, would still be entitled to the protection of the Domestic
Violence Act, 2005.”
Given the Respondent’s old age, the Court ordered the petitioner to furnish her
with an appropriate portion of his house as well as 10,000 rupees per month for
her maintenance. The Act’s goal was to safeguard women from domestic
violence, hence it should be read in favour of women who are victims of
domestic abuse. The Legislature’s intention was to cover women who’ve been
victims of domestic abuse prior to the Act’s enactment. This was obvious from
the Act’s definitions of the phrases “aggrieved individuals” and “domestic
relationship.” The Domestic Violence Act,2005 is a civil remedy, and the criminal
penalties given in the Act cannot be committed prior to the Act’s entry into
effect, hence enforcing the Act retroactively does not violate Article 20(1) of the
Indian Constitution.
The Appellants petitioned the High Court to have the summons cancelled, but
the Court denied their request. As a result, the Appellants filed an appeal in the
Supreme Court against the High Court’s decision.
The Appellants, on the other hand, had no intention of making dowry demands.
The Supreme Court has recognised that Section 498A of the IPC is being
severely misapplied. In the current instance, the Supreme Court directed the
prosecution of the dowry-related offences and ordered that the harassment or
persecution of the husband and married man be halted. Furthermore, the goal
of this committee is to provide for the restoration of innocent people’s human
rights.
“The spouse and his family members may have different points of view in the
conflict, and arrest and court remand are not the solution.” The ultimate goal of
every judicial system is to punish the wicked while protecting the innocent.”
Sube Singh, the petitioner’s husband, also filed a complaint with the Sarpanch
of Village Gaud against the Respondents, after which the Respondents
apologised in writing on 5.8.2008 in the presence of respected members of the
village. They then returned to normalcy for a short period of time before
resuming their obscene behaviour. As a result, having exhausted all other
options for protection from domestic abuse, the complaint was filed.
After examining the provisions of the Act, the Trial Court determined that none
of the witnesses on record demonstrated any fact to the effect that the
Respondents and the petitioner were living in a shared home and that the
Respondents had committed domestic violence against them.
The trial court also ruled that no violence of any sort was claimed within the
joint household’s grounds. The case was dismissed by the Ld. Magistrate. An
appeal filed with the High Court was likewise rejected.
Section 12(1) of the DV Act states that a person may approach a magistrate for
relief or financial relief to compensate for loss sustained by her or her child as a
result of domestic violence, however, this does not include the order of
maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or any other
law. The lady said that after her husband died, she was not permitted to dwell
in her matrimonial house and was driven out with her kid, and she now has no
means of support for herself and her child.