Hyderabad,Nov. 23: The Andhra Pradesh High Court has ruled that victims can make use of the provisions of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (DV) Act even retrospectively.
While delivering a verdict, Justice K.C. Bhanu said husbands could not offer the defence that they were separated from their wives when the Act came into force if they had been cruel to them earlier.
The judge dismissed a petition filed by Mr Y. Mohit, who sought the quashing of proceedings launched against him by his wife in a local court in Mancherial in Adilabad district under the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act.
The judge upheld the decision of the lower court which granted interim relief to the wife.
Mr Mohit’s wife, Ms P. Sushma, a doctor in Mohitnagar of Mancherial, approached the local court invoking the provisions of the DV Act and had sought a monthly maintenance for herself and her three-year-old daughter Siri.
Ms Sushma complained that her husband tortured her when they were in Australia and that she returned to India along with their daughter in the first week of January 2006.
She sought protection against her husband from the court during the pendency of the petition.
As an interim relief, the lower court granted Rs 15,000 as monthly maintenance to her.
Meanwhile, Mr Mohit and his mother approached the High Court seeking to quash the proceedings in the Mancherial court.
According to them, the proceedings were launched after the DV Act came into force on October 26, 2006, during which time the couple did not live together at all.
While the petitioner’s counsel argued that the Act cannot have retrospective effect, Ms Sushma’s counsel, Ms S. Vani, said the very language of the Act suggested a retrospective effect.
