Name of the Student : CHETHAN KUMAR

Registration Number : 17BBLB012

Programme : BBA.LLB(Hons)

Semester : VIIIth SEMESTER

Course : WOMEN & CRIMINAL LAW

Course Code : 5BBLB802

Component : ARTICLE REVIEW

Date of Submission : 12th JUNE 2021

Submitted to : Prof. RAMYA .R

Domestic Violence Menace Amplified During Lockdown

BY: ANISHA MISHRA, 6th May 2021

About Author:

Anisha Mishra is a law graduate from Amity law School, Lucknow. She has pursued
her LLM from symbiosis law university. The legal system in India and the power it
has on people’s lives has always fascinated her, making her opt this field as her
profession. She explains about the domestic violence faced by women during
lockdown. In this article the author talks about the background of domestic violence
act and few landmark cases and recent case regarding domestic violence during the
covid pandemic.

Summary:

In the country in which rivers are named after Goddess, domestic violence is a sad
reality and is prevalent in many parts of India. According to sources every one out of
three women is likely to have faced violence of a physical, emotional, or sexual
nature.

“Section 3 of The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005, talks
about domestic violence as an act that harms or endangers the life of the aggrieved
person or causes or tends to cause harm in the form of physical abuse, verbal abuse,
economical abuse, sexual abuse.”

“There are varied reasons and consequences which are associated with domestic
violence such as patriarchal social structure, dowry system, socio-economic class,
educational level, and family structure beyond the patriarchal framework and other
stress-related factors within the household include poverty, marriage at young age,
having multiple children, and other limiting gives rise to certain development factors
which lead to practices like feticide, infanticide, physical assaults, rape, molestation,
dowry death, etc.”

“In the time amid the covid situation, there is a steep rise in the domestic violence
cases because of confined life and stress in the lives of the people the pandemic has
brought along with it”
PROTECTION OF WOMEN FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT, 2005

Before passing the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, women
used to seek help for domestic violence under Indian Penal Code, 1860(IPC) because
the issue was considered as a criminal offence. It includes sections such as Sec.304-
B, & 498-A of IPC. Then on, September 13, 2005, ‘The Protection of Women from
Domestic Violence Act’ was introduced and passed. The main objective of this act
was to protect women from domestic violence. This act was considered as civil and it
was acknowledged in Indra Samra v. V.K.V Sara, (2013) case, which aimed to ensure
women remedies which include residence, custody and protection which were listed
under the Section 18 to 22 of this act.

Case laws

In D. Veluswamy v. D. Patchaiamma, the SC gave a broad meaning to the term

“aggrieved person” which is “under section 2(a) of the DV Act”. In this case the court
said that ‘every live-in relationship will not amount as a relationship in the nature of
marriage’.

To get assistance under the DV Act, the aggrieved person in a live-in relationship can
get the benefit of the act, only if the five conditions given by the court gets proved
with proper evidence.

In Sandhya Wankhede vs. Manoj Bhimrao Wankhede, the SC made a landmark

judgment by interpreting “Section 2(q) of the DV Act.

In this case the SC has been questioned on the issue as according to Section 2(q), that
the aggrieved person can only ‘file a complaint against a male adult member, but she
cannot file a complaint against any female relative of her husband or male partner’,
for example, sister-in-law, mother-in-law etc. However, Supreme Court observed
that Section 2(q) does not exclude female relatives of the husband or the male
partner, from the ambit of complaint that can be made under the provisions of the
DV Act, 2005.

Issues and Cases During Lockdown

Although the existence of Domestic violence in our country has always been an issue,
but it got worse during the Covid- 19 pandemic. Covid -19 pandemic has been felt as
a petrifying threat to humankind around the globe. On 24th March 2020, the prime
minister of India, declared “a nationwide lockdown” to control the spread of the
novel coronavirus, which resulted in women being forced to confine themselves in
their respective homes, where they were subjected to domestic violence. Within 2
weeks, The National Commission of Women reported a 100% rise in the number of
cases of ‘domestic violence’ in India. Later a nationwide WhatsApp number was also
launched by the National Commission of women as an alternative method to assist
women in reporting domestic abuse. But the number of cases kept on rising
exponentially, between 25th March 2020 and 31st May 2020. The number of
complaints recorded during this period was “more than those recorded between
March and May, in the previous 10 years.

In Satish Chander Ahuja v Sneha Ahuja case, a couple from Delhi filed a civil suit to
exile their daughter-in-law from their house, which was owned by the couple. In this
case the SC decided that ‘to justifiably protect the women being subjected to
domestic violence there was a need of giving a broad reading to the term “shared
household” in section 17 of the DV act’. Therefore the “judgment delivered by a three-
judge bench held that “if she has been living there after her marriage, even if the
house may belong to the husband’s parents, the victim can still rightfully reside in
that house.”

The SC decided that, once she files a complaint under the DV act she has the right to
live in a house even if she was made to leave that house after conflict since the house
will still be treated as a ‘shared household’ as per under section 17 of the DV Act.

Review and Conclusion:

In this article, the author talks about domestic violence faced by the women in India.
She explains about the remedies which are there for protection of women. And she
also explains about few cases regarding this issue. The author also explains about the
increase of domestic violence faced by women during the covid pandemic time.
I agree with the author regarding this matter. In India women are always dominated.
They never have freedom to go out. Only in recent years women have started to move
out and stand on their own kegs, before they were always depending men i.e., until
they marry, they depend on their father and after marriage they depend on their
husband. Using this as advantage men used to relive their work stress or frustration
on women by scolding or beating them.

Now during the pandemic, because of lockdown everyone is staying at home, and
because of this they faced financial problem and because of that, there were many
problems within the households. Because of which there were many divorce cases.
The government has taken initiative in protecting women from domestic violence by
launching national wide WhatsApp number for reporting cases regarding domestic
violence. Like this, many initiatives were taken to protect women from being abused
but still it is not decreasing. Domestic violence doesn’t decrease because of
government or by their initiatives, it can only be decrease when mind set changes.