Chennai: In PIL, advocate seeks effective law against domestic violence

Chennai: A woman lawyer has approached the Madras high court to direct the State government and social welfare secretary to take necessary measures to implement the mandate under the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act and consequently frame a Court Practice Manual for judicial officers and legal practitioners to implement the Act in its letter and spirit.

The First Bench comprising Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani and Justice M.Duraiswamy, before whom the Public Interest Litigation filed by advocate Sudha Ramalingam, also a social activist, came up for hearing, posted the matter to January 25, 2019 after Government Pleader (in-charge) V.Jayaprakash Narayanan sought time to get instructions and file a counter affidavit.

According to Sudha Ramalingam, the DV Act is a welfare legislation that is aimed at protecting women in a timely manner from violence or threat of
violence that they encounter at the hands of their domestic partner and/or the domestic partner’s family members. However, owing to an increase in women filing domestic violence cases, a dearth of protection officers and practical
roadblocks, the implementation of the DV Act has not been effective in Tamil Nadu, she added.

She said under the provisions of the Act, the aggrieved person gets access to the Magistrate concerned either by preferring an application herself or through the Protection Officer (PO) or by any other person who was concerned for the aggrieved person. Contrary to this, the Magistrates in a routine and mechanical manner forward most of the applications presented directly to them to the PO having jurisdiction for the preparation of the Domestic Incident Report (DIR). It was seen that in many cases, the Magistrate does so without even
conducting a preliminary enquiry on the merits of the case or hearing the aggrieved person and adjourns the matter for the receipt of the DIR.

If suitable directions and guidelines were issued to all the Judicial Magistrates in this regard, victims who need immediate relief need not wait for the POs to give a report and the burden of the POs can also be reduced and they can spend their time effectively to only those cases where victims really need their assistance, she added and enumerated several other key issues with respect to how
proceedings under the DV Act were conducted as on date and the immediate need to issue guidelines.

Emphasising the need to appoint more POs, she said there were 33 POs for 32
districts in Tamil Nadu with Chennai being the only district to have 2 POs, the other districts in the state have only one PO. This number was woefully
inadequate compared to other states and their appointment of POs. Unless there was an increase of POs in the district level and appointment of POs in Taluk level, there will not be effective implementation of the DV Act in Tamil Nadu. Owing to a lack of POs, the statutory deadline prescribed under the Act has been extended by several months, thus defeating the purpose of the time-bound proceedings, she added.