Not allowing a woman to live in a matrimonial house is domestic violence: HC

The Bombay High Court ruled a widow must be allowed to live in her matrimonial home, citing her rights under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act.

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court ordered a family to allow a 43-year-old widow from Nagpur to live in her matrimonial house. The court held that stopping a woman from living in her shared household amounts to domestic violence under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (DV) Act, 2005.

Not allowing a woman to live in a matrimonial house is domestic violence: HC

A single judge bench of justice Urmila Joshi Phalke said that a woman’s right to live in her matrimonial house, irrespective of whether she has ever resided there or not, can be enforced under section 17 of the DV act which protects her right of residence. “If her right to reside in the shared household is resisted or restrained, she becomes an aggrieved person and she cannot be evicted, if she has already been living in the shared household, or excluded from it or any part of it if she is not actually residing therein,” the court added.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the elder brother of the woman’s late husband. In his petition, the brother challenged the Nagpur sessions court’s August 2022 which allowed the widow to live in the ground floor of their house.

The woman had stayed with her husband at his family house in Nagpur after her marriage, but the couple had shifted to Pune in August 2004 due to some family issues. As her mother-in-law left behind a will, allowing the woman’s late husband to construct a flat in the first floor of the house, her husband had in 2007 begun constructing the upper floor for his own family. The ground floor was occupied by the family of her husband’s elder brother.

However, her husband passed away in January 2008 before the construction of the flat was complete. When her brother-in-law refused to accommodate her and her teenage son, the widow approached a magistrate court and obtained orders protecting her right to live in the shared household.

The elder brother of her husband approached the high court after the Nagpur sessions court upheld the magisterial order. He challenged the lower court orders claiming that the widow had never lived in the house where she sought accommodation for herself and her son and therefore his house could not be called a “shared household” as mentioned in the DV act.

The high court last week upheld the lower court orders.