Bangalore: Women cannot file case against female members of their husband’s family under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the Karnataka high court observed on Thursday.
With this observation, the confusion over filing of complaints against woman by another woman from the same family, and how the police should proceed on such complaints, has been cleared.
Women can file a complaint under the Domestic Violence Act against their mother-in-law or sister-in-law or women relatives, but the police should initiate action against the respondents under Section 498a (relating to dowry harassment) of the IPC or any other suitable law, ruled a division bench headed by justice KL Manjunath and justice BS Patil.
The court observed that though Section 2(q) of the Domestic Violence Act empowered women to file complaints against the relatives of their husbands, it did not include the female relatives of the men.
The division bench further observed that women should not be included as defendants in cases pertaining to residential and custody rights or protection.
In such cases, women could file complaint only against male members of the family.
The court clarified the Domestic Violence Act in Leelavati v/s Bhaskar case.
Leelavati, a resident of Okalipuram, filed complaints against her husband Bhaskar, father-in-law Murugeshan, mother-in-law Nalini and sister-in-law Kavitha under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act in the magistrate court.
Bhaskar and others challenged the petition, and the court ordered the removal of all other names except that of the husband from the complaint.
Leelavathi challenged this order before a single judge bench of the high court.
The bench referred the case to the division bench with the observation that it was not good to drop the other names.
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, has been widely criticised following increased instances of misuse of the provisions included in the Act.
The act was meant to provide effective protection of the rights of women, guaranteed under the Constitution, who are victims of violence occurring within the family.
It was, however, noticed that several women misused the Act to take revenge on their husband’s female relatives as well.
The punishment under this act is severe than that awarded in dowry harassment cases.
