Now Women Can Also Be Charged Under Domestic Violence Act: SC

In a landmark change, the SC has amended the Domestic Violent Act so that women & non-adults can also be prosecuted.

Supreme Court of India. (Photo: Reuters)

In a landmark verdict, a bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and R F Nariman at the Supreme Court has ordered for the deletion of the words ‘adult male’ from the Domestic Violence Act (DV Act), widening the prosecutorial scope to women and non-adults for being violent toward or harassing a female relative.

The SC has decided that not only ‘adult males’ pose a threat to married women; even women and non-adults can be tried. (Photo Courtesy: The Quint/Hardeep Singh)

This order comes at the end of an appeal against a judgement of the Bombay high court, which recently discharged four people of the same family, including a woman, two girls and a minor boy on the grounds that they were not ‘adult male’ and hence, not under the purview of the DV Act.

'Current Act Reads Contrary to Goals of Domestic Violence Law': SC

The two words figure in section 2(q) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 which outlines the respondents who can be prosecuted under this law.

The microscopic difference between male and female, adult and non adult, regard being had to the object sought to be achieved by the 2005 Act, is neither real or substantial, nor does it have any rational relation to the object of the legislation [...] We, therefore, strike down the words ‘adult male’ before the word ‘person’ in Section 2(q), as these words discriminate between persons similarly situated, and far from being in tune with, are contrary to the object sought to be achieved by the 2005 Act.

The Supreme Court judgement on the change to the DV Act

The bench said that the words ‘adult male person’ were contrary to the object of affording protection to women who have suffered from domestic violence ‘of any kind’ and is against the Right to Equality enshrined in the Constitution.