On the Domestic Violence Law: How the PWDVA has been domesticated with dubious interpretations

THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT, 2005 (‘PWDVA’) has crossed two decades and it is time to evaluate the effect of the Act. The Supreme Court in its judgment in Salem Advocate Bar Association (2005) referred to the suggestion made by the Constitution Review Committee with regard to analysing the judicial impact of a legislation and also gave a consequential direction in respect of the two legislations for which extensive amendments were made by the Union of India. It was said:

“The Committee has also suggested that:

"Further, there must be 'judicial impact assessment', as done in the United States, whenever any legislation is introduced either in Parliament or in the State Legislatures. The financial memorandum attached to each Bill must estimate not only the budgetary requirement of other staff but also the budgetary requirement for meeting the expenses of the additional cases that may arise out of the new Bill when it is passed by the legislature. The said budget must mention the number of civil and criminal cases likely to be generated by the new Act, how many Courts are necessary, how many Judges and staff are necessary and what is the infrastructure necessary. So far in the last fifty years such a judicial impact assessment has never been made by any legislature or by Parliament in our country."

Having regard to the constitutional obligation to provide fair, quick and speedy justice, we direct the Central Government to examine the aforesaid suggestions and submit a report on this Court within four months.” 

Two research scholars attached to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences with the support of the Ministry of Women and Child Development attempted to study the implementation of the PWDVA. In order to study the actual orders passed by different magistrate courts working under various high courts, they sought permission from respective Chief Justices of different high courts including Bombay High Court and Madras High Court. To their disappointment, the two courts, while granting permission to study the judicial orders passed by the magistrates, refused to allow them to use it in any publication thereby frustrating the very effort of having understanding the impact of the legislation over the judiciary and how they understood the legislation. Added to this, the Madras High Court also refused access to them to study the records from the magistrate courts. 

Despite such obstacles, the two research scholars, Monica Sakhrani and Trupti Jhaveri Panchal, have brought out a voluminous report titled ‘Quest for Justice: A Study of the implementation of the PWDVA, 2005’ studying the various orders passed by the magistrates, interviews with the litigants and their counsels as well as several NGOs working in the field.