Mumbai Court Upholds Order On Grant Of Maintenance To Wife; Women Married To Gay Man ‘Aggrieved Person’ Under DV Act 

The Mumbai Court in the case observed that the term ‘aggrieved person’ under the Domestic Violence Act wouldn’t just include a woman who is suffering physical abuse but also sexual, verbal and emotional abuse, a session court upheld an order wherein directing a ‘gay’ man to pay maintenance to his estranged wife. The husband appeal is dismissed by Additional Sessions Judge Dr AA Joglekar against an order of the magistrate court granting the wife Rs. 15,000 maintenances. The court while considering the tenor of Section 3 of the Domestic Violence Act it can be clearly inferred that, the term domestic violence in corporates for a wider scope and it is not at all limited for mere physical injuries or abuse, thus, the same cannot be stretched pertaining to sexual, verbal, emotional and economical abuse. In its order, the court upheld the observations of trial court that any act or conduct of respondent (husband) in violation of the section would naturally come under the purview of domestic violence. In the present case, the couple was married in December 2012. It being the case of women that husband hadn’t consummated their marriage for over six months and she had found him sexting other men. He would be returning home late from work and he created a fictitious Facebook account and that account “reflects [his] compromising position with other men. Further, her attempts to consummate their marriage were in vain. On the other hand, it has been claimed by the man that his wife neither had proof of his alleged actions nor had he denied her sex. Thus, it was her who refused to keep physical relations with him on the pretext of her examinations. The wife always suspected him. Before the court, he argued that her allegations of domestic violence were vague as she filed to prove who caused the alleged domestic violence. Further, the counsel appearing for him argued that the Trial Court is in transgression to the very concept of the termed aggrieved person, more especially when the applicant failed to have stated as to who caused domestic violence to her. Accordingly, the court stated that on perusal of the wife’s testimonial evidence the court noted that she had accessed the photographs and screenshots of her husband’s nudes and it being evident that the evident that, the said contents accessed and retrieved by her from the respondent No.1’s mobile phone has naturally caused such trauma, distress and emotional abuse to the applicant.