HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY CRIMINAL PETITION No.1843 OF 2008 DATE: 05-08-2011 BETWEEN: T.S.R. Anjaneya Sastry and another. - - - Petitioner/A-3 & 4. AND The State of A.P., Rep. by Public Prosecutor, High Court of A.P., Hyderabad, And another. - - - Respondents/ Complainant. This Court made the following : HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY CRIMINAL PETITION No.1843 OF 2008 ORDER: This Criminal Petition is filed by the Petitioners/A-3 and A-4 under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. seeking to quash proceedings in D.V.C. No.3 of 2008, pending on the file of III Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad at L.B. Nagar, Ranga Reddy District. 2. Whereas the Petitioners are A-3 and A-4, the Respondent No. 2 is the defacto Complainant in the Domestic Violence Case. 3. For the sake of convenience, I refer the parties as arrayed in the Domestic Violence Case. 4. It is a case of harassment of the defacto complainant namely T. Phani Chandrika, wife of A-1, daughter-in-law of A-3 and A-4, sister-in-law of A-2 by them and sisters of A-3 including the Petitioner/A-6 for want of additional dowry. 5. In the petition the second respondent - the defacto complainant has sought to provide necessary protection, monetary relief and residence to her. It is claimed on behalf of the Petitioners as follows : The Petitioners who are parents of A-1 got no obligation to provide any residence or protection order or monetary relief to the second respondent/defacto complainant who is residing in U.S.A. and her husband/A-1 is also residing in the U.S.A. and A-1 being her husband is only under the obligation to do so, if any, and hence the case is liable to be quashed in so far as the Petitioners/A-3 and A-4 are concerned. 6. As per the docket order, dated 08-02-2010, the de-facto complainant and A-1 have been residing in U.S.A. Learned counsel for the Petitioners/A-3 and A-4, in support of his contention has relied upon a decision reported in S.R. Batra and another Vs. Smt. Taruna Batra[1] wherein under similar circumstances it was held as follows : “25. If the aforesaid submission is accepted, then it will mean that wherever the husband and wife lived together in the past that property becomes a shared household. It is quite possible that the husband and wife may have lived together in dozens of places e.g. with the husband’s father, husband’s paternal grand parents, his maternal parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces etc., If the interpretation canvassed by the learned counsel for the respondent is accepted, all these houses of the husband’s relatives will be shared households and the wife can well insist in living in all these houses of her husband’s relatives merely because she had stayed with her husband for some time in those houses in the past. Such a view would lead to chaos and would be absurd. 26. It is well settled that any interpretation which leads to absurdity should not be accepted. 27. Learned counsel for the respondent Smt. Taruna Batra has relied upon Section 19 (1) (f) of the Act and claimed that she should be given an alternative accommodation. In our opinion, the claim for alternative accommodation can only be made against the husband and not against the husband’s in-laws or other relatives. 28. As regards Section 17 (1) of the Act, in our opinion the wife is only entitled to claim a right to residence in a shared household, and a ‘shared household’ would only mean the house belonging to or taken on rent by the husband, or the house which belongs to the joint family of which the husband is a member. The property in question in the present case neither belongs to Amit Batra nor was it taken on rent by him nor is it a joint family property of which the husband Amit Batra is a member., It is the exclusive property of appellant No.2, mother of Amit Batra. Hence, it cannot be called a ‘shared household”. 7. It is pertinent to note here that admittedly the second respondent/complainant has been living in U.S.A. and therefore there is no question of seeking for the said relief’s from the Petitioners/A-3 and A-4 who are residing here. In the decision cited supra, it is also observed that alternative accommodation can only be made by the husband and not by the parents-in-law. So, when the defacto complainant is a resident of U.S.A., the question of providing the relief or reliefs does not arise at all. Further, when she is residing in U.S.A. she must have sufficient financial assistance. So, under these circumstances, the question of directing the Petitioners/A-3 and A-4 to provide monetary relief’s also does not arise at all. Hence, there are no merits in the Criminal Petition and accordingly the entire proceedings in D.V.C. No.3 of 2008, pending on the file of III Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad at L.B. Nagar, Ranga Reddy District, in so far as the Petitioners/A-3 and A-4 are concerned are hereby quashed. Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is disposed of. __________________________ G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY, J Dated: 05-08-2011. Dsh. THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY CRIMINAL PETITION No.1843 OF 2008 August, 05, 2011 DSH [1] AIR 2007 SC 1118