Women entitled to stay in matrimonial home even after hubby's death: HC
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The court further observed that this right is a crucial safeguard to ensure a woman's safety, dignity and protection from being forcibly removed or rendered homeless due to domestic abuse.
Justice M B Snehalatha gave the ruling while dismissing a revision petition filed by a woman's in-laws from Palakkad who sought to quash a sessions court's order. The sessions court had set aside a magistrate's finding that no domestic relationship existed between the woman and her in-laws after her husband's death.
The woman's husband passed away in 2009, after which she and her children moved to her parents' home and filed a petition under the DV Act, alleging that her in-laws had attempted to evict her from the shared household and had obstructed her and her children from residing there. The magistrate's court, however, dismissed her plea, holding that she no longer had a domestic relationship with her in-laws within the meaning of the Act.
On appeal, the sessions court set aside the magistrate's order and restrained the in-laws from committing any act of domestic violence. The in-laws approached HC challenging this.
HC, however, found that the evidence on record established that the in-laws had attempted to dispossess the woman after her husband's death. The court held that she continues to qualify as an 'aggrieved person' under the DV Act and remains in a domestic relationship with her in-laws, both terms being explicitly defined under the statute.
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HC also emphasised that the DV Act is a progressive, rights-based legislation aimed at addressing the pervasive issue of domestic violence against women. It highlighted that Section 17 of the Act grants every woman in a domestic relationship the right to reside in the shared household, irrespective of any legal ownership or title. This right, HC observed, upholds shelter and security as essential to a woman's dignity and reflects the broader objectives of gender justice and human rights embedded in the legislation.
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