In-laws sought quashing of a Section 12 Domestic Violence Act proceeding, arguing the complainant never lived with them in a shared household. The Court relied on Prabha Tyagi v. Kamlesh Devi holding actual cohabitation is not mandatory and dismissed the application.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD LUCKNOW
APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 5374 of 2025
Lakshmi Rai And Another
.....Applicant(s)
Versus
The State Of U.P. Thru. The Secy. Home Deptt. Lko. And Another .....Opposite Party(s) Counsel for Applicant(s) : Himanshu Tiwari, Jitendra Vikram Counsel for Opposite Party(s) : G.A.
Court No. - 16
HON'BLE BRIJ RAJ SINGH, J.
“1. To allow the petition of the petitioners U/S- 482 Cr.P.C. (Now 528 B.N.S.S.) and set aside the impugned notice issued in the case of "Richa Samhita & another V/s Shashwat Rai & others" emanating from Criminal Misc. Case No. 526/2022, u/s 12 of Domestic Violence Act 2005, P.S.-Aashiyana, DistrictLucknow pending before the Ld. Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate C.B.I. (Ayodhya Prakaran, Lucknow) filed by complainant/ opposite party no.2 on 27.01.2022 which is grossly illegal.
ii. To allow the petition of the petitioners U/S- 482 Cr.P.C. (Now 528 B.N.S.S.) and quash the entire criminal proceedings in "Richa Samhita & another V/s Shashwat Rai & others" emanating from Criminal Misc. Case No. 526/2022, u/s -12 of Domestic Violence Act 2005, P.S.-Aashiyana, DistrictLucknow pending before the Ld. Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate C.B.I. (Ayodhya Prakaran, Lucknow) filed by complainant/ opposite party no.2 on 27.01.2022 which is grossly illegal and as such entire criminal proceedings are needed to be quashed and assailed in the interests of justice (annexed as Annexure No.1 & 2).
iii. Pass any order or any direction, as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the circumstances of the case.”
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“ 14. This Court came across number of cases where just to harass the family of husband or the person in domestic relationship, aggrieved party used to implicate the relatives of other side who are not even living or lived with the aggrieved person in shared household and they have been residing at separate places. Therefore, courts below while issuing notice u/s 12 of the Domestic Violence Act must look into this fact from the perusal of the application filed u/s 12 of the Domestic Violence Act along with other available record including the report of the Protection Officer, if available on record. It is further observed that the concerned courts before issuing notices to the persons impleaded as respondents in the application under Domestic Violence Act should satisfy about the fulfilment of the conditions mentioned in paragraph no. 13 of this judgment.
16. Coming back to the present case, from the perusal of the impugned application filed u/s 12 of the Domestic Violence Act, it is clear that no specific allegation has been made against applicant nos. 2 to 6 that they have been residing in a shared household with the opposite party no. 2. Therefore, they cannot be said to be in a domestic relationship with opposite party no. 2.
17. From the perusal of the statement of opposite party no.2 recorded u/s 200 Cr.P.C. in Case No. 1594 of 2015 u/s 498-A
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I.P.C. which has been annexed at page 16 of the supplementary affidavit dated 01.11.2022 filed by the applicants, it is clear that the allegation of domestic violence was made against applicant nos. 1 and 7 and it was also not mentioned that applicant nos. 2 to 6 have been residing with her in a shared household. Therefore, impugned proceeding against applicant nos.2 to 6 is malicious, hence deserves to be quashed.
19. In view of the above observation, the impugned proceeding/complaint in Case No. 59 of 2016 (Smrita Srivastava Vs. Rajiv Kumar Srivastava and others) under Section 12 of the Domestic Violence Act, against applicant nos. 2 to 6 is hereby quashed.”
“ 38. In the case of Smt. Bharati Naik v. Shri Ravi Ramnath Halarnkar and Anr., the High Court of Bombay at Goa held that the words 'has been' and 'have lived' appearing in the definition of 'aggrieved person' and 'Respondent' in the D.V. Act are plain and clear. The Court held that the aforesaid words take in their sweep even a past relationship. The words have been purposefully used to show the past relationship or experience between the concerned parties. It was further observed that the said D.V. Act has been enacted to protect a woman from domestic violence and there cannot be any fetter which can come in the way by interpreting the provisions in a manner to mean that unless the domestic relationship continues on the date of the application, the provisions of the D.V. Act cannot be invoked.
39. In a judgment of the High Court of Madras in Vandhana v. T. Srikanth and Krishnamachari, authored by Ramasubramanian, J., it was held that Sections 2(f), 2(s) and 17 of the D.V. Act ought to be given the widest interpretation possible. The Court, after observing various instances and situations, held that many a woman may not even enter into the matrimonial home immediately after marriage. Therefore, it was concluded that a healthy and correct interpretation to Sections 2(f) and 2(s) of the D.V. Act would be that the words 'live' or 'have at any point of time lived' would include in its purview 'the right to live' as interpreted above. It would be
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useful to quote from the said judgment as under:
20. In a society like ours, there are very many situations, in which a woman may not enter into her matrimonial home immediately after marriage. A couple leaving for honeymoon immediately after the marriage and whose relationship gets strained even during honeymoon, resulting in the wife returning to her parental home straight away, may not stand the test of the definition of domestic relationship Under Section 2(f) of the Act, if it is strictly construed. A woman in such a case, may not live or at any point of time lived either singly or together with the husband in the 'shared household', despite a legally valid marriage followed even by its consummation. It is not uncommon in our society, for a woman in marriage to be sent to her parental home even before consummation of marriage, on account of certain traditional beliefs, say for example, the intervention of the month of Aadi. If such a woman is held to be not entitled to the benefit of Section 17 of the Act, on account of a strict interpretation to Section 2(f) of the Act that she did not either live or at any point of time lived together in the shared household, such a woman will be left remediless despite a valid marriage. One can think of innumerable instances of the same aforesaid nature, where the woman might not live at the time of institution of the proceedings or might not have lived together with the husband even for a single day in the shared household. A narrow interpretation to Sections 2(f), 2(s) and 17 of the Act, would leave many a woman in distress, without a remedy. Therefore, in my considered view a healthy and correct interpretation to Sections 2(f) and 2(s) would be that the words 'live' or 'have at any point of time lived' would include within their purview 'the right to live'. In other words, it is not necessary for a woman to establish her physical act of living in the shared household, either at the time of institution of the proceedings or as a thing of the past. If there is a relationship which has legal sanction, a woman in that relationship gets a right to live in the shared household. Therefore, she would be entitled to protection Under Section 17 of the Act, even if she
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did not live in the shared household at the time of institution of the proceedings or had never lived in the shared household at any point of time in the past. Her right to protection Under Section 17 of the Act, co-exists with her right to live in the shared household and it does not depend upon whether she had marked her physical presence in the shared household or not. A marriage which is valid and subsisting on the relevant date, automatically confers a right upon the wife to live in the shared household as an equal partner in the joint venture of running a family. If she has a right to live in the shared household, on account of a valid and subsisting marriage, she is definitely in 'domestic relationship' within the meaning of Section 2(f) of the Act and her bodily presence or absence from the shared household cannot belittle her relationship as anything other than a domestic relationship. Therefore, irrespective of the fact whether the applicant/Plaintiff in this case ever lived in the house of the first Respondent/first Defendant after 7.2.2007 or not, her marriage to the first Respondent/first Defendant on 7.2.2007 has conferred a right upon her to live in the shared household. Therefore, the question as to whether the applicant/Plaintiff ever lived in the shared household at any point of time during the period from 7.2.2007 to 13.6.2007 or not, is of little significance.
40. Bearing in mind the aforesaid discussion, question No. 2, namely, 'whether it is mandatory for the aggrieved person to reside with those persons against whom the allegations have been levelled' is accordingly answered. It is held that it is not mandatory for the aggrieved person to have actually lived or resided with those persons against whom the allegations have been levelled at the time of seeking relief. If a woman has the right to reside in a shared household, she can accordingly enforce her right Under Section 17(1) of the D.V. Act. If a woman becomes an aggrieved person or victim of domestic violence, she can seek relief under the provisions of the D.V. Act including her right to live or reside in the shared household Under Section 17 read with Section 19 of the D.V. Act.
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52. In view of the above discussion, the three questions raised in this appeal are answered as under:
(i) Whether the consideration of Domestic Incidence Report is mandatory before initiating the proceedings under Domestic Violence Act, 2005 in order to invoke substantive provisions of Sections 18 to 20 and 22 of the said Act?
It is held that Section 12 does not make it mandatory for a Magistrate to consider a Domestic Incident Report filed by a Protection Officer or service provider before passing any order under the D.V. Act. It is clarified that even in the absence of a Domestic Incident Report, a Magistrate is empowered to pass both ex parte or interim as well as a final order under the provisions of the D.V. Act.
It is held that it is not mandatory for the aggrieved person, when she is related by consanguinity, marriage or through a relationship in the nature of marriage, adoption or are family members living together as a joint family, to actually reside with those persons against whom the allegations have been levelled at the time of commission of domestic violence. If a woman has the right to reside in the shared household Under Section 17 of the D.V. Act and such a woman becomes an aggrieved person or victim of domestic violence, she can seek reliefs under the provisions of D.V. Act including enforcement of her right to live in a shared household.
(iii) Whether there should be a subsisting domestic relationship between the aggrieved person and the person against whom the relief is claimed?
It is held that there should be a subsisting domestic relationship between the aggrieved person and the person against whom the relief is claimed vis-à-vis allegation of domestic violence. However, it is not necessary that at the time of filing of an application by an aggrieved person, the domestic relationship should be subsisting. In other words, even if an aggrieved person is not in a domestic relationship with the Respondent in a shared household at the time of filing of an
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application Under Section 12 of the D.V. Act but has at any point of time lived so or had the right to live and has been subjected to domestic violence or is later subjected to domestic violence on account of the domestic relationship, is entitled to file an application Under Section 12 of the D.V. Act."
(Brij Raj Singh,J.)
November 13, 2025 A.Nigam
Digitally signed by :- ANUJ NIGAM High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench
1 issue framed by the court
Whether proceedings under Section 12 of the DV Act against in-laws residing separately from the complainant are maintainable despite absence of cohabitation in a shared household.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Krishnawati Devi & 6 ors. v. State of U.P. & anr.Relied on¶3
Krishnawati Devi & 6 ors. v. State of U.P. & anr., Application U/S 482 No. 14626 of 2019
Prabha Tyagi v. Kamlesh DeviRelied on¶4
Prabha Tyagi v. Kamlesh Devi, MANU/SC/0631/2022
6 provisions across 3 enactments
Lakshmi Rai
And Another
The State Of U.P. Thru. The Secy. Home Deptt. Lko.
Richa Samhita
Brij Raj Singh
As recorded by the court registry
5 orders share this CNR
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
