VIJAYA VASANT SAWANT Vs. SHUBHANGI SHIVLING PARAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The revision petitioner herein is the complainant in Criminal Case No. 150/DVA/2009 filed against her husband and respondents no. 1 to 4 herein in the Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Ponda, under Section 12 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (herein after referred to as "the Act" ). These respondents are her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law. She has also filed an application for protection orders under Section 19 to restrain the respondents and her husband from causing any domestic violence to her and to her child and to restrain them from dispossessing her or obstruct her from entering the matrimonial home at Borivali, as also to restrain respondent no.2 from alienating or encumbering the residential house at Borivali without intimation to her, selling or mortgaging her jewellery in the custody of respondent no.2 and for its return. She has also sought custody of the child. It is admitted position that the revision petitioner has been residing separately from her husband who is not a party to the present petition since 1st April, 2004. The husband had filed petition for divorce in the year 2008. Almost a year thereafter i.e. on 16th February, 2009, the petitioner filed her complaint under the Act against her husband and the respondents herein. By the orders passed in the intervening period, the petition for divorce of the husband has been allowed severing marriage ties between the petitioner and her husband.

(2.) Respondents no. 1 to 4 filed an application at Exhibit 6 for dropping them from the proceedings and/or to discontinue the proceedings against them contending that the allegations made against them in the complaint are vague and do not justify continuance of the complaint. As regards respondents no. 2 to 4, the only allegations made against them are that the petitioner was subjected to harassment by the husband and respondent no.1, the mother-in-law on the instigation of respondents no. 2 to 4.

(3.) With the assistance of the counsel for both sides, I have gone through the order of the Trial Court on the application at Exhibit 6 and the order of the Sessions Court in the appeal preferred therefrom, as also the complaint filed by the petitioner.