IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY EIGHTH DAY OF SEPTEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN Present HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL PETITION No.4343 of 2008 Between: Smt. B. Sumalatha & 3 others .. Petitioners AND State of Andhra Pradesh & 2 others .. Respondents The Court made the following: HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL PETITION No.4343 of 2008 ORDER: Heard Sri Y. Sudhakar, learned counsel for the petitioners, Sri A.S. Vasudevan, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor and Sri G. Mallesham, learned counsel representing Sri P. Prabhakar Reddy, learned counsel for respondents 2 and 3. 2. The criminal petition has been filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, to quash the criminal proceedings in D.V.C. No.17 of 2008, on the file of the VI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court, at Nampally, Hyderabad, including the execution of the order passed in M.P.No.3321 of 2008 therein. 3. The domestic violence case has been filed against the petitioners herein by respondents 2 and 3 herein claiming that the first petitioner herein was married to the son of the second respondent herein and after coming to the matrimonial home, living together with respondents 2 and 3 herein and others of the family, the first petitioner herein used to pick up unnecessary quarrels desiring to separate the son of the second respondent from the family. The petition also alleged that together with her father and brother, the first petitioner herein assaulted the second respondent herein on 01.05.2008 resulting in a complaint to the police and the state of health of the second respondent herein and her husband at their advanced age was claimed to be precarious due to problems of heart, etc. The second respondent herein claiming to be, thus, subjected to domestic violence in the shared household filed the domestic violence case against the petitioners herein committing any acts of domestic violence and she also claimed interim custody of her grand son. 4. Sri Y. Sudhakar, learned counsel for the petitioners brought to notice that in the absence of a stay granted by this Court in respect of petitioners 2 and 4 herein, the trial Court proceeded to dispose of the matter on merits by an order, dated 14.07.2011, dismissing the domestic violence case against them. The order is stated to be in force and, therefore, insofar as the reliefs claimed herein in respect of petitioners 2 and 4 are concerned, the petition has become unnecessary. 5. A perusal of the order passed by the trial Court in respect of petitioners 2 and 4 shows that as petitioners 2 and 4 herein never lived in a shared household with the petitioners in the domestic violence case nor do they have any domestic relationship between them, the trial Court felt that no relief could have been sought for against petitioners 2 and 4. 6. The reasoning adopted by the trial Court in respect of petitioners 2 and 4 would apply with equal force in respect of the third petitioner also, who is the wife of the second petitioner and mother of the 4th petitioner and the first petitioner. Merely because her daughter, the first petitioner, was given in marriage to the son of the second respondent herein, she could not have been brought within the scope of the provisions of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (for short, “the Act”), so as to be subjected to a relief thereunder in favour of the second respondent herein. Even the allegations in the domestic violence case show that specific allegations were made only against the first petitioner herein about her conduct in the matrimonial home and even concerning the incident on 01.05.2008, there was no specification of the involvement of the third petitioner herein and, therefore, insofar as the third petitioner is concerned, the petitioners have to succeed. 7. Coming to the maintainability of the case against the first petitioner, it is not for this Court to go into the truth or otherwise of the conflicting allegations of fact made by the parties and on the allegations made, it cannot be said that even ex facie, no case would have been maintained against the first petitioner. A Division Bench of this Court in AFZALUNNISA BEGUM VS. STATE OF A.P.[1] concluded that the act does not exclude women altogether in a proceeding initiated under the Act and that the ‘respondent’, as defined under Section 2 (q) of the Act, includes a female relative of the husband depending upon the nature of the reliefs claimed against the respondent in the domestic violence cases. This answer to a reference by a Division Bench of this Court had been further strengthened by a decision of the Apex Court in SANDHYA MANOJ WANKHADE VS. MANOJ BHIMRAO WANKHADE[2], in which the Apex Court also made it clear that the Legislature never intended to exclude female relatives of the husband or male partner from the ambit of a complaint that can be made under the Act. Being bound by the binding precedents and being not a fact finding Court, any quashing of the domestic violence case, as against the first petitioner, on the allegations made in the domestic violence case, may not be legally permissible and the petitioners have to, therefore, fail in respect of the first petitioner. 8. Therefore, the Criminal Petition is closed as unnecessary in respect of petitioners 2 and 4 against whom the domestic violence case in D.V.C. No.17 of 2008, on the file of the VI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court, at Nampally, Hyderabad, was dismissed by an order of the trial Court, dated 14.07.2011, and the Criminal Petition is allowed in respect of the third petitioner herein quashing further proceedings against her in the said domestic violence case. The Criminal Petition is dismissed insofar as the first petitioner herein is concerned and none of the observations made herein shall have any impact on the determination of the domestic violence case between respondents 2 and 3 and the first petitioner herein by the trial Court on merits in accordance with law. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 28th September, 2011 KL HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL PETITION No.4343 of 2008 Date: 28th September, 2011 KL [1] 2009 (2) ALT (Crl.) 204 (DB) (A.P.) [2] 2011-MPWN-2-33