ARUNA PARMOD SHAH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ALLOWED, subject to all just exceptions. WP (Crl.) 425/2008 and Crl. M. A. 4171/2008

(2.) THIS Petition was originally listed before a Single Judge of this Court. The Petition contains two prayers u (a)for declaring the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (for short 'act) as ultra vires the constitution of India and (b) to quash the proceedings before the metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi. Very briefly stated, the Petitioner admits that a Ring Ceremony had been performed between him and respondent No. 2, but no marriage had been celebrated. Respondent No. 2 however appears to have taken the stance that their marriage was duly solemnized.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the Petitioner has assailed the vires of the Act on the ground that inasmuch as it provides protection only to women and not to men, the statute offends Article 14 of the Constitution of India. It is beyond cavil that legislation must be presumed to be legally sound and proper, and therefore the burden of proving that it is unconstitutional rests heavily on the Petitioner who asserts so. It has been laid down that if it is evident that a statute is predicated on an intelligible differentia between persons falling within the protection of the provision viz-a-viz those falling outside, and this classification/differentia bears a reasonable nexus to the object sought to be achieved by the legislation, it would not infract or impinge upon the equality doctrine articulated and enshrined in Article 14 of the constitution. We can do no better than to reproduce the following paragraph from State of A. P. v. Nallamilli Kami Reddi, (2001) 7 SCC 708 which has also been relied upon in Basheer v. State of Kerala, (2004) 3 SCC 609: