Women in live-in relationships can also file complaints of domestic violence with the police but the law is let down by lax implementation and bad policing as the Shraddha Walker case shows.
Shradhha Walker, 28, was chopped into pieces by her live-in partner who removed all the evidence in the months no one looked for her. Walker was in an abusive relationship and must have contemplated reporting the matter to police many times.
But such is the police’s low credibility in this country that girls in live-in relationships would rather face the situation alone than allow police to sit in judgement on their allegedly “immoral” lifestyle.
At the most the police let off the male member accused of indulging in domestic violence with a warning leaving the complainant again at his mercy.
The Domestic Violence Act, 2005, extends a variety of reliefs to an affected person. The Act covers every relationship in the nature of marriage as per the definition laid down by Section 2 of the Act.
In D. Velusamy vs D. Patchaiammal, the Supreme Court laid down following requirements to be fulfilled for determining the term “relationship in the nature of marriage”.
One, the couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses. Two, the couple must be of legal age to marry. Three, the couple must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried.
Four, the couple must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a significant period of time.
In addition, the parties must have lived together in a “shared household” as defined in section 2(s) of the Act. Merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would not make it a “domestic relationship in the nature of marriage”.
Thus, a relationship with a married person cannot be considered as a relationship in the nature of marriage.
Under the law, protection officers, preferably women, must be placed in every district so that any domestic violence may be reported to them. They are the first point of contact when an aggrieved woman decides to file a domestic incident report.
Any NGO or protection officer or the police or magistrate can help any aggrieved woman under the Act. The woman can be shifted to a shelter home if she wants and can also get medical facilities to help her. She can also claim maintenance.
The magistrate can ask the parties to undergo counselling, direct that the aggrieved woman is not evicted, grant her monetary relief, and compensation for any emotional torture or distress. This can be done at the instance of the aggrieved party, the protection officer or an NGO.
One can reach a protection officer by going to the nearest police station or go to the Department of Women and Child Development in the district, approach the National/State Women’s Commission or an NGO.
In theory, the law is fairly advanced but in practice like most laws it remains on paper. Lax implementation, lack of awareness and a stubborn refusal on part of the aggrieved women to use the law to protect themselves sets the stage for such tragic incidents.
The law interestingly allows anyone who comes to know of domestic violence or abuse to file a complaint. In Shraddha’s case, friends who knew of abuse at the hands of her partner did not alert the authorities quickly enough to prevent the tragedy.
Even if they did, there is no guarantee that the police would have taken the complaint seriously.
Her live-in partner used this time to eliminate all evidence of her brutal murder. There’s also an urgent need to make policemen aware of the niceties of law so that they do not pass value judgements but help the hapless women complaining of domestic violence.
