IN THE COURT OF DISTRICT AND SESSIONS JUDGE, WEST, TIZ

HAZARI COURT, NEW DELHI.

APPEAL NO 90 /2021
IN THE MATTER OF:

SHEETAL SINGH PAWAR …Appellant

Versus

PRASHANT KUMAR PAWAR & ANR. …Respondents

Synopsis of arguments

This appeal has been filed against the judgement of the Ld. MM Mahila Court dated
19.02.2021 where the Hon’ble court allowed the Respondents’ application to dismiss
the petition filed by the Complainant/Appellant on the grounds of maintainability.
In the final set of arguments, the counsel for the Complainant/Appellant advanced
arguments in regards to the jurisdiction of the learned court in order to admit the
appeal.
The counsel for Respondents has already submitted a reply to the appeal filed by the
Complainant/Appellant and adequately refuted all the arguments originally forwarded.
However, to further substantiate the arguments, the counsel for Respondents further
advances the following submissions:
1. Respondent No.1 does not reside in the local limits of the Hon’ble court
The counsel for the Complainant/Appellant, in the complaint filed under section 12 of
the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (hereinafter DV Act) has
submitted that both the Respondents 1 and 2 within the jurisdiction of the Hon’ble
court.
It is hereby submitted that Respondent No. 1 cannot be said to be residing at the
address as has been indicated by the Complainant/Appellant. It has been already
admitted that Respondent No. 1 was residing at Doha with the Complainant/Appellant
till 06.03.2020 and is currently in India due to some business work but intends to return
to Dubai as he has taken a residency permit of Dubai and has been staying outside
India for more than 22 years.
The counsel for the Appellant has put forth two arguments in support of their claim,
firstly, the address of the Respondent as mentioned in the Aadhar Card and secondly,
Respondent No. 1 has been residing and carrying on his business within the
jurisdiction of the Hon’ble Court.
In regards to the first point, the counsel respectfully submits that address mentioned
in the Aadhar card cannot be taken as a proof of residence in the present case. It has
been an accepted fact that Respondent No. 1 has not been staying in India for the last
several years and has been residing in Moscow and Doha for the major part of the last
two decades. Hence, the address mentioned on the Aadhar card of the Respondent
No. 1 does not mean that he has been residing at the said address. To further
substantiate this argument, it would be pertinent to refer to a judgement from the
Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, Smt. Parvati Kumari & Anr. v. State of Uttar Pradesh.
In the forestated judgement, the Hon’ble Court has clearly stated that entries in the
Aadhar Card cannot be said to be a conclusive proof of the facts such as date of birth,
address, name, etc. since such information is provided by the applicant. Therefore, it
is hereby established that Aadhar card cannot be considered as a proof of residence
for Respondent No.1.
In regards to the second point, it is hereby submitted that Respondent No. 1 neither
resides nor runs any business within the jurisdiction of the Hon’ble Court. It is
submitted that the present appeal is not maintainable as the petition has very rightly
been rejected by the learned MM court on grounds of jurisdiction a as neither the
Complainant/Appellant nor the Respondent No. 1 are residing within the jurisdiction
as per the requirements of Section 27 of the Act. The Relevant portion of the Section
27 are reproduced as below:
“27. Jurisdiction. —
(1) The court of Judicial Magistrate of the first class or the Metropolitan Magistrate, as
the case may be, within the local limits of which—
(a) the person aggrieved permanently or temporarily resides or carries on business or
is employed; or
(b) the Respondent No. 1 resides or carries on business or is employed; or
(c) the cause of action has arisen, shall be the competent court to grant a protection
order and other orders under this Act and to try offences under this Act.
(2) Any order made this Act shall be enforceable throughout India”
In order to further elucidate on the point regarding place of residence, the counsel
would like to draw the attention of the Hon’ble Court towards the case of Jeewanti
Pandey v. Kishan Chandra Pandey. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the said
case, stated that “Where there is such fixed home or such abode at one place, the
person cannot be said to reside at any other place where he had gone on a casual or
temporary visit, e.g., for health or business or for a change.” Section 27(1)(b) of the
DV Act clearly provides that the Respondent should reside in the limits of the court to
ascertain jurisdiction. It has been already advanced in the appeal that Respondent No.
1 was forced to stay in Delhi whereby he was trying to set up his business in
Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. It is submitted that Section 27(1)(b) touches upon the place
where the respondent resides or carries on business or is employed. Herein there is
no mention of temporary residence of the respondent. In the present matter the
Respondent No. 1 is admittedly temporarily residing in India due to the Covid-19
pandemic. This has also been mentioned in para 2s of the petition filed by the
Complainant/Appellant. It is also admitted fact that Respondent No. 1 has been living
abroad for more than 22 years and has been staying along with Complainant/Appellant
since their marriage. In Sushil Kumar Shukla v. State of UP, the Hon’ble court held
that the meaning of the term “reside” was taken to dwell permanently or for a length of
time but not a place where a person has gone for a temporary or casual visit like for
business. Although the statute does not demand temporary nature of residence of the
Respondent, The Hon’ble apex court, in the case of Afia Rasheed Khan v. Dr.
Mazharuddin Ali Khan has indicated that intention to stay at a particular place should
be present for making a place even a temporary abode for the party. The very fact that
Respondent No. 1 intended to conduct business in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh clearly
refutes the argument of the Complainant/Appellant that the Respondent was
conducting business in the limits of the jurisdiction of the Hon’ble court (The details
regarding the business have been attached as Annexure A in the reply to the appeal).
Therefore, the contentions of the Complainant/Appellant do not carry any weight to
satisfy the requirements of Section 27(1)(b) of the DV Act.
 2. Respondent No. 2 has been added to the suit only to invoke the jurisdiction of
the Hon’ble Court
The counsel respectfully submits that Respondent No. 2 does not share a domestic
relationship with the Complainant/Appellant and hence cannot be impleaded as a
respondent in the present suit. As per the section 2(q) of the DV Act, a respondent
means “any adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the
aggrieved person and against whom the aggrieved person has sought any relief under
this Act”. Section 2(f) of the Act further defines domestic relationship as “relationship
between two persons who live or have, at any point of time, lived together in a shared
household, when they are related by consanguinity, marriage, or through a relationship
in the nature of marriage, adoption or are family members living together as a joint
family”. Finally, section 2(s) of the Act defines shared household as “household where
the person aggrieved lives or at any stage has lived in a domestic relationship either
singly or along with the respondent and includes such a household whether owned or
tenanted either jointly by the aggrieved person and the respondent, or owned or
tenanted by either of them in respect of which either the aggrieved person or the
respondent or both jointly or singly have any right, title, interest or equity and includes
such a household which may belong to the joint family of which the respondent is a
member, irrespective of whether the respondent or the aggrieved person has any right,
title or interest in the shared household”.
From the above definitions, it is clear that for a person to be a Respondent, they should
be residing in a shared household with the Complainant/Appellant. It is hereby
submitted that the Complainant/Appellant never had a shared household with
Respondent No. 2. As per the complaint, both the Respondent No. 1 as well as the
Appellant/Complainant moved to Moscow, Russia shortly after the marriage. Further,
the alleged harassment of the Complainant/Appellant at the hands of Respondent No.
2 occurred when the Complainant/Appellant was pregnant and as per her own
admission, she was at her own parents’ house at the same time during both the
pregnancies. (Paragraph 2g and 2k of the Complaint). The Hon’ble Delhi High Court
has, in the case of Hima Chugh v. Pritam Ashok Sadaphule & Ors. stated that for
existence of domestic relationship, the parties have to be living together under one
roof and only a temporary movement from such a house might be considered under
the phrase ‘at any point of time’ and not otherwise. So, in the case at hand too, the
Complainant/Appellant did not share any sort of permanent or even temporary
domestic relationship with Respondent No. 2, so such a relationship cannot have said
to be existed between them.
It is submitted that the permanent residency of the Complainant/Appellant abroad has
already been admitted and further mere visits to India during pregnancy cannot be
considered as temporary visits, as mentioned in the previous submissions. It is
submitted that all throughout her petition the appellant has stated that she has lived
outside India and she is still living in Doha which is being admitted by her. Therefore,
the parameters of Section 27 (a) are not satisfied. Apart from this, the court in Sharad
Kumar Pandey v. Mamta Pandey essentially defined the term temporary residence by
stating that it is a place of residence which is a continuing residence from the date of
residing to the one of filing the complaint. Further, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India
observed in the case of Satish Chandra Ahuja v. Sneha Ahuja that while deciding upon
the question of shared household, the element of permanency has to be looked at.
Further, mere fleeting or casual living will make a shared household. In another case
of Harbans Lal Malik v. Payal Malik, it was held that there can be no domestic
relationship between a son's wife and his parents if the parents do not live with the
son, and there can be no domestic relationship between a woman and her husband's
parents if the son and wife live abroad, build a family there, and have children there.
Hence, it can be affirmatively said that, in the present case, the Complainant/Appellant
did not have a shared household with Respondent No. 2.

3. The Complainant/Appellant advanced certain arguments in the appellate court

which were not originally the part of the complaint
It is hereby submitted that the current appeal is a gross abuse of process of law as the
appeal fails to provide any plausible defense or grounds in respect of which this appeal
is made. It is submitted that the petition of domestic violence of the appellant was
dismissed by the Ld. MM Mahila Court on the grounds of maintainability as the
petitioner has herself stated in para 11 of her petition filed before the Ld. MM court
that the petitioner is submitting to the court’s jurisdiction on the basis that the
Respondent No. 1 and the mother of the Respondent No. 1 are residing within the
court’s jurisdiction. However, in the present appeal the Appellant is claiming
jurisdiction of the court on the ground that the Respondent No. 1 is the Director of a
company that is located within the jurisdiction of the Court and therefore carries on
business within the jurisdiction of the Court. Further it is submitted that the Appellant,
in the present appeal, has claimed that the court has jurisdiction in the present matter
by invoking Sections 177, 178 and 179 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973
(CrPC). The Appellant has also tried to claim jurisdiction on the basis that the
Appellant’s permanent residence address, as given in the passport and her Aadhar
Card is a place that falls within the jurisdiction of the Court whereas it has already been
argued that the Complainant/Appellant is residing in Doha more specifically at Fayruz
Building 2, Apartment 8, Education City, Doha, Qatar. All the newly added averments
do not find any mention in the original petition and therefore they cannot be entertained
now and therefore this appeal should be dismissed.

4. The cause of action did not arise in the limits of the Hon’ble Court
The counsel hereby submits that the appeal is not maintainable in this honourable
court. It has already been established that Respondent No. 2 was only impleaded in
the suit to invoke the jurisdiction of the Hon’ble Court. So, all the alleged acts of
harassment of the Complainant/Appellant should have been committed by
Respondent No. 1 and nowhere in the complaint, any such acts have been claimed to
have occurred in India. It is submitted that in this regard attention is drawn towards the
specific incidents of domestic violence mentioned by the Complainant/Appellant in her
domestic violence petition which can be found in Para (r) to Para (s) to her original
petition. It is submitted that that from the averments of the petition it is clear that the
alleged acts of domestic violence took place outside India where the
Complainant/Appellant and Respondent No. 1 resided and therefore the issue of
cause of action arising in India and more particularly within the jurisdiction of this court
does not arise at all. It is submitted that the applicability of the law as per Section 1 of
the Domestic Violence Act, 2005 extends only to the territories of India. The act
claimed by the Complainant/Appellant goes beyond the applicability of the Domestic
Violence Act, of 2005. It is thereby submitted that the extra- territorial application
should not be entertained. Section 27(2) also states that “Any order made this Act shall
be enforceable throughout India” and therefore the application cannot be entertained
because the Complainant/Appellant is not residing within the jurisdiction of this court,
therefore this appeal should be dismissed with heavy costs.
It is further submitted that the appeal filed by the Complainant/Appellant does not fulfil
any of the requirements as mentioned under Section 27 of the DV Act, and hence, she
cannot invoke the jurisdiction of the Hon’ble Court.
The counsel respectfully submits that the contentions raised by the
Complainant/Appellant do not hold any merit in regards to the maintainability of the
appeal and is liable to be dismissed.

RESPONDENT

Delhi
Dated:

Through:

Adv. Sonia Saini

S.S. Global Law Firm