THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G.BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL PETITION NO.11724 OF 2010 ORDER: D.V.C.No.42 of 2010 on the ﬁle of the IX Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad at Miyapur, led the petitioners herein to approach this Court for quashing of further proceedings therein against them. 2. The report by the second respondent herein to the Protection Oﬃcer, dated 29.09.2010, led to the institution of the case and the second respondent alleged therein that she was married to the ﬁrst petitioner in December, 1982, at which time cash of Rs.1,00,000/-, gold, silver articles and household articles were given as dowry by the parents of the second respondent. The second respondent alleged that they were misrepresented about the employment of her husband, who is a habitual drunkard and gambler. The second respondent was compelled to run a catering service and do tailoring work and her husband was sent to Dubai in 1995 at the expenses of her parents. The husband was claimed to have sent money till October, 2004 and stopped thereafter. The second respondent also referred to the construction of a house near Sudershan nagar Colony and purchase of a quarter No. 31/B, situated at Doyen’s Township, Serilingampalli, which were with her savings. The second respondent further claimed that out of the wedlock, three children were born and two daughters’ marriages were already performed at her expense while the husband spent only Rs.1,50,000/- sent on 26.06.2007. Since the second respondent was detected to be infected with HIV, the ﬁrst petitioner was stated to be maintaining a distance from her and due to the ﬁrst petitioner beating the second respondent in 2004, Crime No.400 of 2004 was registered at the instance of the second respondent in Regimental Bazar Police Station. The second respondent claimed petitioners 2 to 4 to be directing and inﬂuencing the ﬁrst petitioner in his treatment of the second respondent and even in July, 2010, the ﬁrst petitioner was alleged to have attempted to kill the second respondent. The second respondent therefore, claimed that she was maintaining the family with the support of her parents with great diﬃculty and she was being threatened by the ﬁrst petitioner to vacate the house and divorce him, against which she sought for relief of a protection order under Section 18 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (for short, ‘the Act’), separate accommodation with household articles under Section 19 of the Act, monthly maintenance of Rs.20,000/- towards monetary relief under Section 20 of the Act, compensation of Rs.20,00,000/- for domestic violence under Section 22 of the Act and any ex parte interim order deemed ﬁt and proper under Section 23 of the Act. 3. The second respondent also sought for interim restraint order against the ﬁrst petitioner and others from alienating or dealing with the two house properties. 4. The petitioners challenge the cognizance of the D.V.C. by the Magistrate and contended that the second respondent developed illicit intimacy with the supplier of raw material for construction with whom she contacted HIV disease. They alleged that even the daughter contacted the same infection and the ﬁrst petitioner spent lot of money for treatment of the second respondent and was also maintaining her and paying all her bills including the property taxes. The D.V.C. was ﬁled with a view to drain oﬀ all the resources of the ﬁrst petitioner for the beneﬁt of second respondent and there was no allegation of the other petitioners sharing a common mess or living together with the second respondent. Therefore, the relief sought was claimed to be untenable. 5. At the time of issuing notice to the second respondent in this petition, the proceedings against the ﬁrst petitioner were permitted to go on while granting an interim stay in respect of petitioners 2 to 4. 6. Sri J.C.Francies, learned counsel for the petitioners and Sri K.V.Mallikarjuna Rao, learned counsel representing Sri K.V.L.N. Murthy, the learned counsel for the second respondent and Sri Rudresh Despande, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor/the first respondent, are heard. 7. The point for consideration is whether the further proceedings in D.V.C. No.42 of 2010 need to be discontinued against any or all the petitioners. 8. Insofar as petitioners 2 to 4 are concerned, the allegations against them were conﬁned to para 13 of the petition by the second respondent before the Protection Oﬃcer and the only allegation against them was that the ﬁrst petitioner was acting as per their directions and under their inﬂuence. The petitioners 2 to 4 were alleged to do so in order to gain by sale of the properties of the ﬁrst petitioner and to usurp all the earnings of the ﬁrst petitioner. The detailed narration of the marital life of the second respondent contained no other references to the involvement of petitioners 2 to 4 in the domestic life of the second respondent. The shared household in which the second respondent and the ﬁrst petitioner had lived in a domestic relationship is not the residence of the petitioners 2 to 4 wherein the ﬁrst petitioner also is stated to be at present residing. Petitioners 2 to 4 might be related to first petitioner, the husband, but they were not claimed to have ever lived at any point of time along with the husband and wife or their children or to have been parties to any act of domestic violence against the second respondent or her children within the meaning of domestic violence as deﬁned under Section 3 of the Act The learned counsel for the second respondent attempted to bring the allegations against the petitioners 2 to 4 within the meaning of economic abuse under Section 3 of the Act, but by any process of elastic interpretation, the ﬁrst petitioner allegedly acting as per the directions and under the inﬂuence of petitioners 2 to 4 can not be considered to come within the scope of economic abuse under the statute. The allegations are vague, omnibus and unspeciﬁc without a single speciﬁc instance being claimed of physical participation of petitioners 2 to 4. It is also unclear as to how the directions or inﬂuence came to even the personal knowledge of the second respondent and as to how they can be made liable to any of the reliefs claimed in the D.V.C. As the petitioners 2 to 4 thus appear to be not susceptible to any reliefs under the statute, the further proceedings against them have to be discontinued in exercise of inherent powers of this Court. 9. However, so far as the husband is concerned, even the petition did not speciﬁcally controvert all the speciﬁc allegations made against the ﬁrst petitioner by the second respondent to the Protection Oﬃcer. The petition itself shows the ﬁrst petitioner to be believing the second respondent to have illicit intimacy with another person due to which she contacted HIV and all was not well in their marital relationship is evident from the petition itself. The various allegations made in the complaint of second respondent to the Protection Oﬃcer relate not only to the period prior to the enactment, but also subsequent thereto, the last of such events being alleged to have happened in July, 2010. This Court cannot convert itself into a fact- ﬁnding Court on the truth or otherwise of such claims in the matter as it should be dealt with on merits by the trial Court in so far as the first petitioner is concerned. 10. In the result, the further proceedings in D.V.C.No.42 of 2010 on the ﬁle of the IX Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad at Miyapur, are quashed against the petitioners 2 to 4 and the Criminal Petition is allowed accordingly in respect of the said petitioners 2 to 4 and dismissed in respect of the first petitioner. ________________________ G.BHAVANI PRASAD, J NOVEMBER 23, 2011 YVL IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY THIRD DAY OF NOVEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN PRESENT THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G.BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL PETITION NO.11724 OF 2010 Between: Ganesh Rai and others. ...PETITIONERS AND The State of Andhra Pradesh Rep.by P.P. and another. ...RESPONDENTS The Court made the following: THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE K.C. BHANU CIVIL MISCELLANEOUS APPEAL No.1130 OF 2008 September 22, 2011 MD