Domestic Violence Act a few case laws....to know

We all know this Domestic Violence Act has been passed to secure women in general but it is not limited to women only it is for the vulnerable persons having a domestic relationship living in a family and all of them are covered. So even mothers can take shelters of courts for violence against son and daughters.
LIVE In relationship is out of the purview of the act and a women staying with their partner under a livein relationship can not take shelter of the domestic violence act as per the recent supreme court decision Indra sarma V. kv Sarma 2013(8) supreme court 122 ( click here to read the judgement) But the act recognises living relationships too.
Thus, if a woman is living with a man who abuses her, she can take recourse to the provisions of this law even though she is not married to him.

According to section 2(g), any relationship between two persons who live, or have at any point of time lived together in the shared household, is considered a ‘domestic relationship’.

This includes relations of consanguinity, marriage, or through relationships in the nature of marriage, adoption, or joint family – thus, ‘domestic relationships’ are not restricted to the marital context alone.

‘Domestic relationships’ also cover sisters, widows, mothers, daughters, women in relationships of cohabitation, single women etc. Any widow or unmarried sister or daughter who is harassed within the home can also resort to the new law.

The law also protects women in fraudulent or bigamous marriages, or in marriages deemed invalid in law.

Further maintaining wife and children is the obligation of the husband and depriving a women from money to support herself is also recognised as domestic violence but a women can not claim maintainance from the inlaws though she is entitled to claim this from her husband only.

Now who are covered under the domestic violence act..

Women and children. Section 2(a) of the Act will help any woman who is or has been in a domestic relationship with the ‘respondent’ in the case.

It empowers women to file a case against a person with whom she is having a ‘domestic relationship’ in a ‘shared household’, and who has subjected her to ‘domestic violence’.

Children are also covered the act; they too can file a case against a parent or parents who are tormenting or torturing them, physically, mentally, or economically. Any person can file a complaint on behalf of a child.

 click here to read the domestic violence act 2005