PANAJI: If domestic violence has occurred before the Domestic Violence Act was notified, then any such incident cannot come under purview of the Act.

Judicial magistrate First Class, Mapusa made this observation while hearing a case filed by one Sangeeta Sharma, who asked for permanent custody of her child and sought maintenance under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, which came into effect on October 26, 2006.

Sangeeta had alleged that she was being mentally and physically harassed by her husband Hemant Kumar Sharma and father-in-law Jagdish Sharma. She also alleged that her father-in-law slapped her and asked her to sign a paper which said that she being a career-oriented woman wanted to give away the custody of the child to her husband and father-in-law.

JMFC judge while dismissing the petition filed by the woman observed, "The Act doesn't specifically say to have retrospective effect, therefore, under section 12 the protection officer can't take into consideration any incident that is said to have taken place on July 8, 2006 (before the Act came into effect). Thus, the incident doesn't come within the purview of the Domestic Violence Act."

Hemant is a medical representative and is currently working in Bangalore, while Sangeeta is staying in Goa along with their child in Mapusa. The couple had married on January 29, 2001 and have a 16-month old child.

Further, the court observed that after going through the evidence it is obvious that the applicant wants to grab the flat purchased by her father-in-law. "The entire purpose of filing the petition under Domestic Violence Act was to grab the flat for herself," the Court added.

The Act is to provide for more effective protection of rights of women, who are victims of violence of any kind occurring within the family, which is guaranteed under the Constitution. Primarily meant to provide protection to the wife or the female live-in partner from violence at the hands of the husband or a male live-in partner or his relatives, the law also extends protection to women who are sisters, widows or mothers.

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• Review of the Domestic Violence Act and other related laws  

We, on behalf of Save Family Foundation, Delhi, write to you to expeditiously amend the lopsided PWDVA which was passed on the basis of assumption and biased view along with under tremendous pressure from a small minority of vocal and radical Groups elements of our country, who want that each and every home a litigation should start ( Promotion of Legal Terrorism) and a Huge money had been invested for that purpose, which is evident from their huge cry that why only  approx.10000 Domestic Violence case filed in one year, it evident that those groups work  like a Business Group who had invested huge money with the expectation the expected Profit  and Business Turnover  and for that they are desperate to ensure that there should not be any single home to be spared where Litigation not started.

Hence our sincere request to you to take immediate action, if we really want a Happy Family life in India and our Future Child will not spend their Child hood under Father Less Society:

• Replace the word β€œHusband and Wife” with β€œSpouse”.
• Replace the word β€œMen and Women” with β€œPerson”.
• Government should make the provision for Shelter Home and other facility to the victim of Domestic Violence, as an interim relief.
• Establish the Family Court without Lawyers and the Domestic Disputes to be resolved in Family Court only.
• In case found the complainant had not come to file the case in Clean Hand and misused the LAW along with Judiciary / administrative authority, they should be punished and the fine amount should go to Government as revenue.
• Duplication/ multiple maintenance case to be stopped. This is total abuse of not only the natural Justice Systems and Duplication of LAW, this is the main motivation for filling false and fabricated case to extort the money from Husbands family.
• There should not be any direct Compensation to the Complainant, if the offence proved beyond reasonable dought the offender should be Punished or fined and in such fine amount should go to the Government Revenue only. The same should be used for the well fare of real victim of Domestic Violence as a collectively. There should not be any difference or discrimination of Rich or poor people and different facility. All should be treated as same standard.
• Those cases already 498A/Divorce/CRPC125 or any other cases had been filed and couple are not staying together and their case already pending in court , should not be allowed to file another DV case ( This is total Violation of Indian Constitution of article 20 , where a accused can’t be punished twice for the same offence)

Β·         WCD (Ministry of Women and Child Development) review committees consist of all women committees with radical and extreme views. We seek that representatives of NGO's like Save Family Foundation and their associates should be included in this committee. This is to ensure that there is balance and sanity in the review of the law.

Β·         Service providers in DV (Domestic Violence) LAW should be neutral persons and made accountable for their actions to ensure justice for the greater good of society. Restricting service providers to women’s group’s activists and organizations is like asking the wolf to guard the sheep. These groups are not above temptation to extortion, blackmail and corruption. Besides, who will monitor their actions and penalize them for abuses? Judges and officials should be neutral. They should be insulated from pressure and intimidation under the garb of gender sensitization.

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