Allowed

Maram Venkateswarlu v. Maram Lakshmi Padmavathi

Telangana HC26 Jul 2012CRLP/9473/2009

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

The Court quashed domestic violence proceedings filed by a brother's wife alleging economic abuse after her brother-in-law took hotel management. The Court held this was a civil dispute pending in a civil court and the filing was an abuse of process.

What did the court decide?

The entire proceedings in D.V.C.No.5 of 2009 on the file of the Additional Junior Civil Judgecum-Judicial First Class Magistrate, Ponnur, Guntur District are quashed.

Maram Venkateswarlu Vs Maram Lakshmi Padmavathi — Domestic Violence | Telangana HC (2012)

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THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE R.KANTHA RAO CRIMINAL PETITION No.9473 of 2009

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ORDER:

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This Criminal Petition is filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 to quash the proceedings in D.V.C.No.5 of 2009 on the file of the Additional Junior Civil Judgecum-Judicial First Class Magistrate, Ponnur, Guntur District.

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I have heard Sri Raja Reddy Koneti, learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner and the learned Additional Public Prosecutor representing the second respondent-State.

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Learned Counsel for the first respondent submitted that he gave up the Vakalat for the first respondent long ago. As on the date of hearing, there is no representation for the first respondent. Brief facts of the case are that the first respondent is the brother’s wife of the first petitioner and co-sister of the second petitioner. The first petitioner is the husband of the second petitioner. Petitioner Nos.3 and 4 are the children of petitioner Nos.1 and 2. D.V.C.No.5 of 2009 on the file of the Additional Junior Civil Judge-cum-Judicial First Class Magistrate, Ponnur, Guntur District came to be filed by the first respondent under Sections 18, 19, 20 and 22 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (for short ‘the Act’) contending that the father-in-law of the first respondent was maintaining a hotel belonging to the joint family in a rented building wherein her fatherin-law permitted the first petitioner and the first respondent to work in the hotel. All the family members used to have access to the hotel and were allowed to take food items from the hotel. After the death of her father-in-law, the first petitioner took charge of the hotel business and he has been running the hotel. The grievance of the first respondent is that since after the first petitioner took

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charge of the hotel, she was not allowed to have access to the hotel and he was not giving her share of income from the hotel business. It is further alleged that the first petitioner is not allowing her to take food items from the hotel which were earlier permitted by her father-in-law. With the aforesaid allegations, she filed D.V.C.No.5 of 2009 on the file of the Additional Junior Civil Judgecum-Judicial First Class Magistrate, Ponnur, Guntur District under Sections 18, 19, 20 and 22 of the Act.

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The petitioner filed the present Criminal Petition to quash the entire proceedings on the ground that the licence of the hotel stands in the name of the first petitioner and, in fact, the first petitioner filed O.S.No.4 of 2009 against his brothers for permanent injunction restraining them from interfering with his hotel business and for other allied reliefs. Admittedly, in the said suit, on an application filed by the first petitioner, the Principal Junior Civil Judge, Ponnur, passed an order directing the parties to maintain status quo. These facts are not in dispute. The contention of the petitioners is that the first respondent filed the case under various provisions of the Act only to harass them and, therefore, they filed the present Criminal Petition to quash the entire proceedings in the said case.

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Section 3 of the Act reads as follows:

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3. Definition of domestic violence:

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For the purposes of this Act, any act, omission or commission or conduct of the respondent shall constitute domestic violence in case it –

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a. harms or injures or endangers the health, safety, life, limb or well-being, whether mental or physical, of the aggrieved person or tends to do so and includes causing physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse and economic abuse; or

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b. harasses, harms, injures or endangers the aggrieved person with a view to coerce her or any other person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any dowry or other property or valuable security; or

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c. has the effect of threatening the aggrieved person or any person related to her

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by any conduct mentioned in clause (a) or clause (b); or

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d. otherwise injures or causes harm, whether physical or mental, to the aggrieved person.

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Taking over the management of the hotel and running the same to the exclusion of other family members does not in any way attract any of the provisions of the Act. From the point of view of the first petitioner, the alleged Act does not amount to domestic violence and, therefore, the first respondent is not entitled to file a case against the petitioners by invoking the provisions of the Act. From the documents filed by the petitioners, it is obvious that there is a civil dispute between the first petitioner and his brothers which is pending before the competent Civil Court. If the first respondent has any grievance about the first petitioner taking over the management of the hotel, she has to adjudicate her rights by getting herself impleaded as a party in the suit on par with other brothers of the first petitioner. In any event, I am of the considered view that filing a case of this nature under Sections 18, 19, 20 and 22 of the Act is nothing but an abuse of process of law. It seems that D.V.C.No.5 of 2009 was filed by the first respondent as a measure to harass the petitioners and to make them to come to her terms.

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I am convinced that the entire proceedings in the said case are liable to be quashed. Consequently the entire proceedings in D.V.C.No.5 of 2009 on the file of the Additional Junior Civil Judgecum-Judicial First Class Magistrate, Ponnur, Guntur District are quashed.

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The Criminal Petition is, accordingly, allowed.

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R.KANTHA RAO,J

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Date:26.07.2012 usd

Maram Venkateswarlu v. Maram Lakshmi Padmavathi

Case brief

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Maram Venkateswarlu v. Maram Lakshmi Padmavathi

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