THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE B. CHANDRA KUMAR Criminal Petition No. 1137 of 2008 Order: This petition, under Section 482 Cr.P.C., has been filed by the petitioner/respondent No.7 to quash the proceedings in DVC No.7 of 2007 on the file of the I Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Visakhapatnam (hereinafter referred as “the Lower Court”). The notice sent to the second respondent was returned unserved with an endorsement “as not claimed”. The same amounts to refusal of notice. The brief facts of the case are as follows. The petitioner herein is respondent No.7 in D.V.C. No.7 of 2007. Respondent No.1 in DVC is the husband of the second respondent herein. Respondent Nos.2 and 3 are the parents of respondent No.1. Respondent No.4 is the brother and Respondent No.5 is the sister of respondent No.3. Respondent No.6 is the close friend of respondent No.1. Respondent No.7 is related to respondent No.1, whom respondent No.1 was intending and planning to marry. Respondent No.2 herein was already married to one Venkatesha on 11.02.1996. They were blessed with a son on 15.01.1997. Disputes arose between respondent No.2 herein and said Venkatesha and it is alleged that Venkatesha was moving closely with some other women. However, subsequently, respondent No.2 herein developed intimacy with respondent No.1 in DVC and obtained divorce from her former husband. She returned to America and married respondent No.1 in DVC on 20.07.2000 in California. The allegations made against respondent No.1 in DVC need not be mentioned. Suffice to say that a reading of the complaint in DVC No.7 of 2007 reveals that respondent No.1 intended to marry the petitioner herein and that she is related to respondent No.3. In another para, it is mentioned that respondent No.1 would obtain divorce in USA, never return to India and marry respondent No.7 in USA. According to the learned counsel for the petitioner except those two averments in the complaint, there is no material against the petitioner. Thus, the sum and substance of the allegation against the petitioner is that respondent No.1 in DVC intended to marry her in USA. Respondent has been defined under Section 2 (q) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (for short ‘the Act’), which is as follows. (q) “respondent” means any adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person and against whom the aggrieved person has sought any relief under this Act: Provided that an aggrieved wife or female living in a relationship in the nature of a marriage may also file a complaint against a relative of the husband or the male partner; Domestic relationship has been defined under Section 2(f) of the Act, which is as follows. (f) “domestic relationship” means a relationship between two persons who live or have, at any point of time, lived together in a shared household, when they are related by consanguinity, marriage, or through a relationship in the nature of marriage, adoption or are family members living together as a joint family; Domestic violence has been defined under Section 3 of the Act, which is as follows. 3. Definition of domestic violence:- For the purposes of this Act, any act, omission or commission or conduct of the respondent shall constitute domestic violence in case it- (a) harms or injures or endangers the health, safety, life, limb or well-being, whether mental or physical, of the aggrieved person or tends to do so and includes causing physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse and economic abuse; or (b) harasses, harms, injures or endangers the aggrieved person with a view to coerce her or any other person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any dowry or other property or valuable security; or (c) has the effect of threatening the aggrieved person or any person related to her by any conduct mentioned in clause (a) or clause (b); or (d) otherwise injures or causes harm, whether physical or mental, to the aggrieved person. Explanation I:- For the purposes of this section,- (i) “physical abuse” means any act or conduct which is of such a nature as to cause bodily pain, harm, or danger to life, limb, or health or impair the health or development of the aggrieved person and includes assault, criminal intimidation and criminal force; (ii) “sexual abuse” includes any conduct of a sexual nature that abuses, humiliates, degrades or otherwise violates the dignity of woman; (iii) “verbal and emotional abuse” includes- (a) insults, ridicule, humiliation, name calling and insults or ridicule specially with regard to not having a child or a male child; and (b) repeated threats to cause physical pain to any person in whom the aggrieved person is interested. (iv) “economic abuse” includes- (a) deprivation of all or any economic or financial resources to which the aggrieved person is entitled under any law or custom whether payable under an order of a court or otherwise or which the aggrieved person requires out of necessity including, but not limited to, household necessities for the aggrieved person and her children, if any, stridhan, property, jointly or separately owned by the aggrieved person, payment of rental related to the shared household and maintenance; (b) disposal of household effects, any alienation of assets whether movable or immovable, valuables, shares, securities, bonds and the like or other property in which the aggrieved person has an interest or is entitled to use by virtue of the domestic relationship or which may be reasonably required by the aggrieved person or her children or her stridhan or any other property jointly or separately held by the aggrieved person; and (c) prohibition or restriction to continued access to resources or facilities which the aggrieved person is entitled to use or enjoy by virtue of the domestic relationship including access to the shared household. Explanation II:- For the purpose of determining whether any act, omission, commission or conduct of the respondent constitutes “domestic violence” under this section, the overall facts and circumstances of the case shall be taken into consideration.” Though a reading of definition under Section 2(q) of the Act may give scope to file a complaint against any relative of the husband, but the definitions of domestic relationship and domestic violence, as referred above, does not cover a person whom the husband intended to marry. It has to be seen that the allegations made in the complaint goes to show that respondent No.1 threatened the second respondent herein that he would marry the petitioner herein. It is not the case of respondent No.2 that the petitioner herein at any time harassed her or informed her that she would marry respondent No.1 and in the absence of any such allegation and in the absence of any specific overt acts attributed against the petitioner herein, I am of the view that initiating proceedings against the petitioner herein will amount to abuse of process of law and result in harassing the petitioner. In the circumstances, the Criminal Petition is allowed. The proceedings in DVC No.7 of 2007, pending on the file of the I Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Visakhapatnam, stands quashed only in respect of the petitioner herein. ______________________ B. CHANDRA KUMAR, J. Date: 23.04.2010 Nsr