Nidhi Kaushik v Union Of India, MANU/DE/1306/2014
The wife was rejected from a job appointment as she disclosed her ongoing domestic violence application in court. The Supreme Court held that domestic violence is not an offence under the DV Act. Domestic violence defined in section 3 of the DV Act per se is not an offence and the Act does not provide for any punishment for the same. However, breach of a protection order passed by the Court, amounts to an offence under section 31 of the DV Act.
The reason appears to be that the proceedings under section 12 of the DV Act are civil in nature triable by a civil court, criminal court as well as the family court. However, in the event of breach of a protection order, a fresh criminal case has to be initiated against the accused and in that criminal case, at the stage of framing the charge, the court is empowered to frame a charge under IPC or any other law if the facts disclose the commission of such offence. The fresh complaint under section 31 of the DV Act would be a criminal case as the respondent would be accused of an offence under section 31 of the DV Act and as per section 31(2), it should preferably be tried by the magistrate who passed the order. It highlighted the fact that under section 5(e) imposes a duty on the magistrate to inform the complainant to file an FIR for any offence under IPC. Further, section 31(2) also provides that upon breach of a protection order, a separate criminal case has to be initiated which should preferably be tried by the same court.
Meera Somil Lodaya v Somil Hirji Lodaya, 2018 ALL.MR(Cri) 4609
The wife filed an application under section 12 of the DV Act against her husband and the magistrate granted interim maintenance orders. The husband did not comply with the orders. In this matter, the wife filed three revision applications before the High Court of Bombay seeking relief for initiating appropriate action for non-compliance of the interim orders. The wife filed an application under section 31 for non compliance which was rejected. An appeal to the sessions court was also rejected. Aggrieved, the wife filed an appeal in the High Court.
Dismissing the orders of the magistrate and sessions court, the Bombay High Court held the magistrate is empowered to entertain complaints under section 31 of the DV Act and that the magistrate had refused to discharge the responsibility and also failed to exercise his power merely on the ground that the prayer made in the application was to initiate contempt proceedings.