Live-in relationship cover under Section 2(f) of Domestic Violence Act

To cover a All Live-in relationship under Section 2(f) of Domestic Violence Act, possibility of a legal marriage is sine qua non

Aurangabad bench of the  Bombay High Court has held that in order to claim any relief under the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, relations between the woman and her partner must be in the nature of marriage. 

Court has dismissed a criminal revision application filed by a 30-year-old woman who sought the correct interpretation of Section 2(f) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (DV Act) after an Additional Sessions Judge set aside an order of a Judicial Magistrate First Class who had held the relationship between the petitioner and the respondent “in the nature of marriage.”  

Section 2(f) lays out the meaning of a ‘domestic relationship’ under the DV Act. The court noted that the Sessions judge had relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Velusamy v. D Patchaiammal [2010]. 

Bench concluded “Once it is clear that in order to enable the applicant to claim any relief under the D.V. Act the relation between her and the respondent No.2 was not in the nature of marriage, she is clearly not entitled to claim any relief under that Act. Admittedly on her own admission, her first marriage was still in subsistence, and if that be so, she could not have married legally with the respondent No.2 albeit he is a Muslim and his personal law permits him to solemnize the second marriage. 

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