THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL PETITION No. 5226 of 2010 Order: This Criminal Petition is directed against the further proceedings in D.V.C. No. 10 of 2009 on the file of the IV Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Kakinada, against the petitioners. The Domestic Violence Case taken cognizance by the Magistrate on the Domestic Incident Report from the Protection Officer, was initiated at the instance of the second respondent herein against her husband and the petitioners herein, who are the parents-in-law and sister-in-law of the second respondent. The material papers enclosed to the Criminal Petition show that the husband is residing in Australia, while the parents-in-law are residing at Bobbili and the sister-in-law is residing at Visakhapatnam with her husband. The contents of Form-I filed by the Protection Officer showed in columns 1 to 3 that the specific allegations of the second respondent were against the conduct of the husband and there was absolutely no reference in the statutory format to any acts of domestic violence committed by the parents- in-law and sister-in-law. Forms II and III also contain no further details in so far as the petitioners are concerned. In the counter to the Domestic Violence Case and in the present Criminal Petition, the petitioners contend that they are not necessary parties to the Domestic Violence Case. The second respondent and her husband were claimed to be living separately in Australia till the return of the second respondent to India in November, 2008. The petitioners claim that except occasional telephonic conversations, they had nothing to do with the marital life of the second respondent and her husband. They claimed that the second respondent and her husband stayed at the family house of the parents-in-law at Bobbili only during the customary period of one week after the marriage and never thereafter. As all the petitioners never lived in a shared household in domestic relationship with the second respondent, they are not susceptible to any reliefs under the Special Statute. They desired the further proceedings against them to be quashed. They also claimed that Crime No. 54 of 2009 was also registered against them under Sections 498-A and 34 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act on the complaint of the second respondent, which is pending for filing of charge sheet. They stated that the second respondent is not entitled to any compensation or share in the property of the parents-in-law. Heard Sri O. Kailashnath Reddy, learned counsel for the petitioners; Sri G. Eshwar, learned counsel for the second respondent and Sri K.Venateswara Rao, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor appearing for the first respondent. The point for consideration is whether the continuance of the Domestic Violence Case against the petitioners has to be disallowed in the interest of justice. As already extracted above, the Domestic Incident Report filed by the Protection Officer before the Magistrate itself showed the husband of the second respondent and petitioners herein to be residents of different places or for that matter, residents of different countries. Forms I to III filed by the Protection Officer obviously containing the result of the enquiry conducted by the Protection Officer made specific allegations only against the husband of the second respondent and not even a remote allegation about any act of domestic violence against the petitioners. If the petitioners and the second respondent never lived in a common shared household in domestic relationship, they ex-facie cannot be liable to a protection order or a residential order or even compensation. Any reliefs under Sections 20 and 21 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 could have been available only against the husband and not against the parents-in-law and sister-in-law. The reliefs claimed towards monetary assistance and accommodation alone were claimed in Form II, which, in any view, could not have been available against the petitioners herein. The learned counsel for the petitioners, Sri O. Kailashnath Reddy made available for perusal a copy of the First Information Report in Crime No. 54/09 of Kakinada III Town Police Station registered on the complaint of the second respondent herein against the husband of the second respondent and the petitioners 1 and 2. In the complaint, it is stated that they stayed at the house of the parents-in-law for ten days after her marriage, after which, she and her husband were necked out. She did not allege any act of domestic violence during that period of ten days and all further allegations made by her were about the events between her and her husband in India and Australia. The complaint only alleged the petitioners herein to be advising the husband on phone, on whose instigation, the husband was harassing her to transfer the house standing in the name of her father in the name of the husband. The said allegation made against the first petitioner is about his threatening to drag her out of the house and beating her with a chappal, if she did not get out of his sight, when she approached him on her arrival in India for holidays. While the conduct of the first petitioner during that incident even if true, could not have been the subject of a complaint of domestic violence, the alleged telephonic instigation by the petitioners to the husband, on the face of it, looks artificial and unnatural. Sri Eswar, learned counsel for the second respondent, while bringing to notice that the enquiry into the Domestic Violence Case had already commenced and the evidence of the second respondent was recorded as P.W.1, also made available a copy of the evidence of the second respondent before the Magistrate in the Domestic Violence Case. Either the chief examination affidavit of the second respondent or her cross-examination did not add any further allegations against the petitioners and the chief examination did not refer to the second respondent and her husband being necked out after the initial stay of ten days with the parents-in-law immediately after the marriage. The chief examination affidavit while describing in detail the various offending acts of husband, did not specifically state about the telephonic instigation by any of the petitioners against the husband in Australia, while of course repeating the incident, which allegedly happened after return of the second respondent to India. The vague, omnibus and general allegations about the abuses by the husband at the instance of the petitioners cannot be considered as providing a sustainable cause of action against the petitioners under the Special Statute. Even during her cross-examination, the emphasis was only on the acts of the husband and not anyway concerned with the petitioners herein. Sri G. Eshwar, learned counsel also referred to a decision of Kerala High Court in PRABHAKARAN vs. STATE OF KERALA[1] wherein a learned Single Judge held that even a house belonging to the father-in-law should be treated as a shared household. Firstly that was a case where an aggrieved wife was shown to have resided in the building in question for quite some time, unlike the petitioner herein. The learned single Judge assuming that the husband has a legal or equitable share in the household, had not interfered in exercise of the power under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Secondly, the learned Judge himself referred to the decision of the Apex Court in S.R. BATRA vs. TARUNA BATRA[2], which the learned Judge distinguished. The Apex Court in the said decision had categorically held that the house which exclusively belonged to the mother-in-law where the daughter-in-law lived with her husband for some time after the marriage, is not a shared household within the meaning of the Special Statute and no right of residence can be claimed therein under Section 19. The Apex Court had in fact made it clear that only a house belonging to or taken on rent by the husband or the house which belongs to the joint family of the husband in which the husband is a member can be a shared household and not the exclusive property of the mother-in-law. What applies to the mother-in-law should be applied with equal force to the father-in-law and any claims made by the second respondent against the house of the father-in-law at Bobbili therefore are not sustainable against the first petitioner. In any view of the matter, there were absolutely no allegations against the third petitioner at any point of time except that she was also alleged to be a party to the telephonic conversations with the husband from time to time to harass the wife at Australia. The first petitioner is a medical practitioner aged 62 years and none of the petitioners were alleged to be involved in any criminal conduct at any time. Persons with such a background involving in telephonic instigations to break the martial life of their own son probably does not sound even remotely convincing. The further proceedings in the Domestic Violence Case have to be necessarily terminated against the petitioners, notwithstanding the fact that the Domestic Violence Case is at the stage of hearing before the learned Magistrate. In the result, the Criminal Petition is allowed and the further proceedings in D.V.C. No. 10/2009 on the file of the IV Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Kakinada are hereby quashed against the petitioners. It is however made clear that none of the observations made herein shall prejudice the determination of the Domestic Violence Case on merits in accordance with law between the husband and wife. ______________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD,J Date: 21st December, 2011 pnb [1] 1(2009) DMC 616 [2] 2007 (3) SCC 169