BENGALURU: The Karnataka high court has come to the rescue of a Kalaburagi woman, who had been ordered by a trial court to get a separate house from the joint family property of her estranged husband.
Under Section 12 of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the trial court had ordered the woman be given Rs 3,000 a month, medical expenses and a separate house from the joint property. This was challenged by the woman's father-in-law and brothers-in-law.
The high court has said in a recent judgement that relief ordered by trial courts under the Domestic Violence Act is applicable to the woman's father-in-law and brothers-in-law if they are enjoying joint family property without there being any partition.
The case pertained to an order passed by the 1st additional sessions judge at Kalaburagi, granting Rs 3,000 per month as maintenance and medical expenses to a woman. The court also ordered that she be provided a separate at Yelsangi village out of the three houses owned by her in-laws' family. A direction was also issued for payment of arrears of maintenance within one month and further direction was given to the jurisdictional police concerned to carry out the order of the court.
The woman's husband, father-in-law and two brothers-in-law challenged the trial court's order. The high court, however, noted that the Domestic Incident Report is clear that all of them (petitioners) are residing together and the family owns 9 acres of land and all of them will get three acres each and no partition had taken place.
The petitioners contended before the high court that the respondent-wife has filed a petition against the husband Shivakumar before the JMFC court at Indi and also another plea seeking directions for the custody of their children.
They argued that the wife was residing separately from 2010 and the petition was filed in 2013 making her petition seeking maintenance among other reliefs under Section 12 of the DV Act not maintainable. Another argument was that a suit for partition is pending and no decree has been passed.
The respondent-wife's counsel cited a number of Supreme Court judgements and argued that definition of the aggrieved person and domestic relationship remains and the act of domestic violence is a continuing offence and does not get time barred.
