“Unfortunately no provision like Domestic Violence Act” for Men?

By S R Ranjan: “Unfortunately, there is no provision like the Domestic Violence Act, to proceed against the wife by the husband,” the Madras High Court said in a 2021 legal case, related to a domestic violence complaint filed by a wife against her husband that led to his suspension of the job, The court further added, “Husband and wife must realise that ego and intolerance are like footwear and should be left out of their house when they enter the home. Else, the child or children will have to face a miserable life.”

 The remark was made reportedly by a bench of Justice S Vaidyanathan while hearing a writ petition filed by a veterinary doctor, P Sasikumar, against the Director of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences order that removed him from the service on the basis of a complaint filed by his ex-wife, just days before their divorce, where she had accused him of domestic violence. “The present generation must understand that marriage is not a contract, but a sacramental one. Of course, the word ‘sacrament’ has no meaning after coming into effect of the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, that, approves live-in-relationship,” the court said.

However, in a recent judgment in 2023, the Delhi High Court held that protection under the Domestic Violence Act is not available to men. Reportedly, in a legal case, hearing a plea of a woman seeking quashing of a Domestic Violence Complaint case moved against her by her husband before a magisterial court, the Delhi High Court held that the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act does not apply to a male member of the family, particularly the husband. “Prima facie it seems in view of Section 2(a), the protection of the Act is not available to a male member of the family, and more particularly the husband,” said a single judge bench of Justice Jasmeet Singh.

In India, the men’s virtue, innocence and righteous is being challenged and tested not just in legal battles, but by the very gender-specific notion of their existential proposition and presumption of men being ‘guilty’. The evolving modern societal perception is backed stereotyped gender-centric notion of empowerment, right to life, freedom, privacy, opportunity which seems to have been overruling basic principles of law as equality for all, justice as equality and equal before law and equality before the laws.

Needless to say, this has become more conspicuous by the absence of laws for men to prove their ‘innocence’, especially in cases like rape laws, domestic violence acts, 498a, dowry cases, matrimonial disputes, alimony, child custody, etc. There is a need for gender-neutral laws, specific law enforcement bodies like National Commission for Men, laws for protection of Men Too, like Domestic Violence ACT, in the new passed Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bills.

S.R.Ranjan

(Singh Rakesh Ranjan)

A Journalist

(Representational images, sources)