Protection Of Women From Domestic Violence Act 2005 Case Study

Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005- A Case Study
Introduction-
The women movements in India go back to almost hundred years. The various social reform movements that were initiated before independence continued though in different shapes even after independence. There were some major Acts that were passed after independence to curb the violence against women e.g. Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, Sati (Prevention) Act 1987 etc. But even this could not make any substantial change in the violence committed due strong patriarchal nature of Indian societies. Also for a long time there was resistance among the lawmakers and judiciary to apply constitutional measure to the private domain like family and home. The Delhi court judgement
With the increase in cases of domestic violence against women the NCW approached Lawyer’s Collective to prepare a draft bill on domestic in 1993. Lawyer’s collective is an NGO which was working extensively on the issues of women rights. One among its founders was Indira Jaising who has major role to play in PWDVA. Lawyer’s Collective came up with a draft for civil law on domestic violence in 1994. But it was soon realized that there was a need to create greater visibility of the issues of domestic violence and introduce the legal communities to the issues and at stake. It was important that there should be consensus among the lawyers and judges that domestic violence is an important issue but has no legal remedies. It was during this time that Lawyer’s collective started approaching NGOs in the country who were working on women rights to share their experiences and research in this field. NGOs like Stree Mukti Sangathana, SWAYAM, People’s Union for civil liberties, National alliance for women etc. became the part of this
Between 1998 and 2001, series of consultations happened with the different women’s organizations in various parts of the country on the aspects of the law. The draft was circulated among lawyers for their consultation and feedback and criticisms. There were various issues that were much debated in the proposed law one was whether the law should be gender-neutral and extend its protection to men faced with violence in home as well. This was perhaps because of the simultaneously emerging men’s movement which claimed that men equally suffer from domestic violence . But there was wide consensus that the bill should be gender specific in nature as the objective is clearly to protect women from the problems that majorly arising due to gender inequality. The violence faced by women actually reinforces the gender inequality and if the law is not gender specific it will defeat the purpose of domestic violence. Another issue of contention was that children also being the victims of domestic violence will be allowed to file a complaint under this law but should be represented by a parent or guardian. But there were contentions about a father can pursue his child to file false complaint against his mother and hence misuse the law. So as a safeguard an amendment was made that only mother who herself is the victim of domestic violence can file an application on behalf of her child that she/he is facing domestic