Sunil Sankla & Ors. v. The State of Andhra Pradesh

Heard Sri Akshath Sanghi, learned counsel petitioners, Sri A.S. Vasudevan, learned counsel representing the learned public prosecutor and Kum. Megha Rani Agarwal, learned counsel representing Sri C. Kodanda Ram, learned counsel for the 2nd respondent. The criminal petition is directed against D.V.C. No.3 of 2008 on the file of the Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Shadnagar, Mahabubnagar District. Petitioners 1 to 5 are arrayed as respondents 2 to 6 in the said domestic violence case along with the husband of the 2nd respondent herein arrayed as the 1st respondent therein with the reliefs being claimed under Sections 18 and 19 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (for short “the Act”). The first objection of the petitioners is against implication of the petitioners as relatives of the husband in the domestic violence case and they claimed that the proviso to Section 2(q) of the Act cannot be read into the main section to permit filing of a domestic violence case against such relations making them respondents.

This matter is no longer res integra and decisions of the Apex Court and this Court make it clear that relatives of husband including female relatives can be proceeded against for the reliefs under the Statute by an aggrieved person, provided the relatives of the husband are also the cause for the complaint by the aggrieved person in respect of a domestic relationship. Coming the specific allegations made against petitioners, it is seen from the material papers filed by the petitioners that the 2nd respondent herein preferred a private complaint before competent criminal Court alleging the husband and the present petitioners to be guilty of offences punishable under Sections 498A and 506 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act read with Section 34 of Indian Penal Code, which was referred the police, investigated into by them and ended in a police report against all the six petitioners being filed before the criminal Court.

The police, the statutory investigating agency, had come to prima facie conclusion of the probability of the husband and the petitioners having committed the alleged offences. The said case is still pending. The report given by the 2nd respondent to the Protection Officer on 16-06-2008 alleged illicit intimacy between the husband and the 5th petitioner herein and the 2nd respondent being harassed by the husband, parents-in-law, brothers of the husband and wife of a brother throughout the stay of the 2nd respondent in the matrimonial home. Details of the general allegations apart, there was a specific allegation about the incident on 07-07-2007, which involved all the six persons, which was the basis of the complaint which led to the criminal prosecution of these persons. The reliefs claimed in the domestic violence case included an order of protection under Section 18 of the Act, which may become necessary against the present petitioners also, if the allegations are true.

While the allegations are denied as false by the petitioners, even the truth or otherwise of the same cannot be the subject of an enquiry before this Court in a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The matter has to be enquired into as per law by the trial Court, which has to come to a conclusion on merits. While quashing of the proceedings cannot, therefore, be resorted to in the face of specific allegations made throughout and in the light of pending criminal prosecution and the reliefs claimed in the domestic violence case, the ages of petitioners 3 and 4, the avocation of petitioners 1 and 2 and the 5th petitioner being a house wife who is not generally seen in public, are relied on as imposing a lot of physical inconvenience and pressure in attending the Court on all dates of hearing. If the petitioners are so advised and so desire, they can make an appropriate request to the trial Court for dispensing with their presence on future dates of hearing except when their presence is indispensable and necessary for further progress of the proceedings in the case and the trial Court shall positively consider such request, if made. Subject to the above direction, the criminal petition is, hence, untenable and is dismissed. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 28-09-2011 Svv