The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 is essentially a civil remedy with criminal consequences for breach. It protects any woman in a domestic relationship in a shared household, which includes a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, and a woman in a relationship in the nature of marriage. It covers physical, sexual, verbal and emotional, and economic abuse.
Before you file
Document everything you safely can. Photographs of injuries, medical records and doctor's notes, threatening messages and call records, bank statements showing the cutting off of money, names of anyone who witnessed incidents. Cases are won and lost on this, and it is much harder to assemble after you have left the house.
The routes in
- The Protection Officer for your district, who records a Domestic Incident Report and places it before the Magistrate.
- A registered service provider or a recognised NGO, which can do the same.
- Directly before the Magistrate by filing an application. This is the fastest route and the one most lawyers use.
What you can ask for, in one application
- Protection order, restraining further abuse and contact
- Residence order, so you cannot be evicted from the shared household
- Monetary relief for maintenance, loss of earnings, medical expenses and property loss
- Custody order for interim custody of children
- Compensation for the distress caused
A protection order that is disobeyed is not a paper order. Breach is punishable under Section 31 of the Act, which is what gives the order teeth.
It runs alongside other cases
A PWDVA application can run in parallel with a criminal complaint (cruelty by a husband or his relatives is now Section 85 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita), a maintenance claim under Section 144 BNSS, and a divorce petition.