In its first ever judgment involving the Domestic Violence Act, the Supreme Court gives an interpretation clearly at odds with the objectives of the Act and against the interests of women who face domestic violence
The first Supreme Court judgment on provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, enacted in 2005, is a striking illustration of the gradual undermining of the law because social attitudes are at variance with the content of the legislation. The Supreme Court had occasion to engage with the concept of ‘shared household’, as defined in the Act, in the recent case of S R Batra versus Smt Taruna Batra, 2006 (13) SCALE 652.
Taruna Batra and Amit Batra were married on April 14, 2000. After marriage, Taruna started living with her husband Amit on the second floor of her mother-in-law’s house at Ashok Vihar in Delhi. Amit Batra filed a divorce petition against his wife. Taruna Batra filed a First Information Report (FIR) for cruelty, intimidation and breach of trust against her in-laws, husband and sister-in-law.
Taruna shifted to her parent’s house. Later, when she tried to enter the house she found that the main entrance was locked. She filed a suit for mandatory injunction to enter the premises. According to the husband’s family, Taruna Batra forcibly broke open the lock of her mother-in-law’s house and terrorised them. The family also stated that the husband Amit had moved out of Ashok Vihar to his own flat at Mohan Nagar.
The trial court held that Taruna was in possession of the second floor of the house and granted an injunction restraining the husband’s family from interfering with her possession. In appeal, the senior civil judge held that Taruna was not living on the second floor of the premises. He also held that Amit Batra was not living in the Ashok Vihar premises, and that the ‘matrimonial home’ could not be said to be a place where only the wife was residing. The judge took the view that Taruna Batra had no right to the property, other than that of her husband. The application seeking that the husband’s family be restrained from interfering with the wife’s possession was dismissed by the court. Taruna Batra subsequently filed a petition in the Delhi High Court.
The high court took the view that mere change of residence by the husband would not shift the matrimonial home, particularly when he had filed a divorce petition against his wife. Therefore, the shifting of the husband Amit Batra to Mohan Nagar in Ghaziabad would not make that house the matrimonial home of the wife Taruna. The high court held that Taruna Batra was entitled to continue to reside on the second floor of the Ashok Vihar premises, as that was her matrimonial home. Amit and his family appealed to the apex court.
The Supreme Court observed that in England the rights of the spouse to the matrimonial home were governed by the Matrimonial Homes Act, 1967. But no such rights exist in India. Illustrating the mindset that the court brought to bear on interpreting a law that deals with the rights of a wife in the matrimonial home, the judgment declares that, in any case, the rights which may be available under any law could only be against the husband and not against the mother-in-law or father-in-law.
The court held that the Ashok Vihar house belonged to the mother-in-law and not to the husband. Therefore, Taruna Batra could not claim any right to live in the premises. The judgment observes that Taruna Batra was not residing in the house and so could not claim an injunction restraining the husband’s family from dispossessing her of the premises. Thereafter, the court goes on to interpret the definition of ‘shared household’ in the Domestic Violence Act and the rights of a woman in the household.
The Domestic Violence Act clearly defines ‘shared household’ in Section 2 (s) as a household where the aggrieved person “lives or at any stage has lived in a domestic relationship either singly or along with the respondent”. The definition covers households owned or tenanted, or joint family property, irrespective of whether the respondent or the aggrieved person has a right, title or interest in the shared household.
Under Section 17 (1), the Act lays down categorically that “every woman in a domestic relationship shall have the right to reside in the shared household, whether or not she has any right, title or beneficial interest in the same”. Section 17 (2) protects the aggrieved person from being evicted or excluded from the shared household. Section 19 gives power to pass ‘residence orders’ in case of domestic violence, restraining dispossession of the aggrieved person from the shared household, “whether or not the respondent has a legal or equitable interest”in the household. The provision also confers powers on the magistrate to direct the respondent to remove himself from the shared household or to restrain the husband and his relatives from entering the part where the aggrieved person resides. The respondent can also be directed to secure the same level of alternative accommodation as that enjoyed by the aggrieved person in the shared household.
The submission made on behalf of Taruna Batra was that the definition of ‘shared household’ in the Domestic Violence Act clearly included a household where the aggrieved person lives or at any stage had lived in a domestic relationship. As Taruna Batra had admittedly lived in the premises at Ashok Vihar, it clearly constituted her ‘shared household’.
The accepted principle of interpretation is that between two possible views, the interpretation that furthers the intention of the legislature and the object of the legislation, particularly in social welfare laws, is the one that should be preferred by the courts. The object of the Domestic Violence Act is “to provide for more effective protection of the rights of women”. However the Supreme Court, in the face of the clear definition of ‘shared household’, rejected the submission that the second floor premises of Ashok Vihar were the shared household of the wife Taruna Batra.
Another sound principle followed by the courts is to give decisions based on the concrete facts and circumstances of the case before them. In the present case, the issue before the court was whether Taruna Batra, who had admittedly stayed on the second floor of the house of the husband’s mother, had a right to stay there under the Domestic Violence Act, as it constituted her ‘shared household’ under the law. Instead of interpreting the law based on the concrete facts of the case, the court ventures into hypothetical and imaginary situations that the husband and wife may have lived in dozens of places like the husband’s parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, etc. Therefore, according to the judgment, if places where the husband and wife lived together were to be accepted as ‘shared household’ then it would lead to chaos and would be absurd. On the basis of this specious reasoning, the judgment declares that “any interpretation which leads to absurdity should not be accepted”.
The court also rejected Taruna Batra’s claim for alternative accommodation under the Domestic Violence Act. The judgment holds that the property belonged to the husband’s mother and could not be claimed by the wife as ‘shared household’. The definition of ‘shared household’ has been intentionally drafted to be broad and inclusive in order to provide more effective protection to women in situations of domestic violence. The court, instead of applying the clear definition in the Act, observes that it is “clumsily drafted” and goes on to give an interpretation clearly at odds with the objective of the Domestic Violence Act and against the interests of women facing domestic violence.
