A civil law, not a criminal one — and the only route that can give you both a home and money in a single proceeding. What each order does, why the in-laws' house can be a shared household, why the printed Act is out of date about who can be a respondent, and how an application is actually filed in Delhi.
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 is a civil law. It does not create an offence of committing domestic violence, there is no FIR, and nobody is arrested when the application is filed. It gives a Magistrate power to make orders — to stop the violence, to protect your right to live in the house, to order maintenance, to give you custody, and to award compensation.
The only offence in the Act is breaching a protection order that has already been made. That is punishable with up to a year, is cognizable and non-bailable, and can be found proved on your sole testimony.
Two things the printed Act will tell you wrongly. It still says a respondent must be an "adult male" — the Supreme Court struck those words down in 2016, so female relatives can be respondents. And it is widely believed that a shared household must belong to the husband — in 2020 a three-judge Bench held otherwise: the in-laws' house can be a shared household, though the Act gives a right of residence, not ownership.
It is usually the fastest thing you can file, because the Magistrate can make interim and even ex parte orders on affidavit. It is also the only proceeding that can produce both a roof and money. A cruelty FIR gives you neither.
Almost every misunderstanding about this Act flows from one mistake, and it is worth clearing before anything else.
This is a civil law. It does not make domestic violence an offence. What it does is give a Magistrate the power to make orders — and it borrows the criminal procedure code only as machinery, because Magistrates are the courts that sit closest to people. There is no FIR on this application, no investigation, no arrest and no anticipatory bail to arrange.
Setting aside a High Court order, the Court held that it had "wrongly equated filing of an application under Section 12 of the Act to lodging of a complaint or initiation of prosecution."
It added that on such an application the Magistrate "is not called upon to take action for the commission of an offence."
Two consequences follow immediately. The standard of proof is the civil one — the balance of probabilities, not proof beyond reasonable doubt. And because it is not a prosecution, the criminal limitation rules do not bar the application.
Who can file: any woman who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent. Those four words carry a lot of weight — the relationship need not be subsisting today.
Against whom: and here is the point on which the printed Act is out of date.
The Court held that the words "adult male" in the definition of respondent "will stand deleted since these words do not square with Article 14".
It added: "Consequently, the proviso to Section 2(q), being rendered otiose, also stands deleted."
One limit, because it is often overstated in the other direction: the 2016 decision changed who can be a respondent. It did not make the Act gender-neutral. The definition of aggrieved person still says "any woman".
The Act covers a "relationship in the nature of marriage", and the Supreme Court set out what that means in 2010. The elements are that the couple hold themselves out to the world as spouses, are of legal age to marry, are otherwise qualified to marry — including being unmarried — and have voluntarily cohabited for a significant period.
"Merely spending weekends together or a one night stand would not make it a 'domestic relationship'."
So the answer is neither a flat yes nor a flat no. It is a test, and whether your relationship meets it is a question of evidence — how you were introduced, what documents name you together, how long you lived together, what the neighbours and families understood.
The definition is far wider than most people expect, and it is worth reading in its four parts because an application should be organised around them.
| Head | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Physical abuse | Acts causing bodily pain, harm or danger to life, limb or health, or impairing health or development — including assault and criminal force |
| Sexual abuse | Conduct of a sexual nature that abuses, humiliates or degrades, or otherwise violates dignity |
| Verbal and emotional abuse | Insults, ridicule, humiliation — including on account of not having a child or a male child — and repeated threats to cause pain to a person she cares about |
| Economic abuse | Deprivation of financial resources, of household necessities, of stridhan and property; disposal of assets; and restricting access to resources or facilities she is entitled to use. See below |
The Act also directs that in deciding whether an act amounts to domestic violence, the court is to have regard to the overall facts and circumstances — which means a pattern of conduct can matter more than any single incident.
Economic abuse deserves its own section because it is the head most often left out of applications, and because it is where this Act and the criminal law meet.
The definition expressly names stridhan — twice. Depriving a woman of financial or other resources including her stridhan is economic abuse; and so is disposing of or alienating assets or her stridhan. Separately, among the residence orders the Magistrate can make is a direction for the return of her stridhan.
That gives a woman whose jewellery and gifts are being held two routes at once:
| Route | What it is | Realistic assessment |
|---|---|---|
| This Act | A civil application to the Magistrate for return of stridhan, as part of the DV proceeding | Usually faster, decided on the balance of probabilities, and it sits alongside the residence and maintenance claims you are making anyway |
| Section 316 BNS | Criminal breach of trust — the jewellery was entrusted and has been misappropriated | Slower, but it is a cognizable, non-bailable offence, and the Supreme Court has held that no special agreement is needed to establish the entrustment |
On timing, the Supreme Court held in 2015 that so long as the woman's status as an aggrieved person remains and the stridhan remains in the husband's custody, she can put forward her claim — treating the retention as a continuing wrong. The same decision held that a judicially separated wife is still an aggrieved person.
This is the relief people most need and the one most often given up on, because of a decision that has not been good law since 2020.
For over a decade, the received position was that a shared household meant property owned or rented by the husband — so a woman living in her in-laws' house had no right of residence there. In 2020 a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court disagreed.
Of the earlier decision, the Court said it "is not correct interpretation and the said judgment does not lay down the correct law."
But it was equally clear about the limit: the Act "does not confer any title or proprietary rights" and "merely secures a 'right of residence'."
In 2022 the Court went further, holding that the right of residence is not restricted to a household in which the woman is actually residing at the time, and that a domestic incident report is not a precondition to claiming it.
| Order | What it does |
|---|---|
| Protection order | Prohibits further violence; prohibits contact "in any form whatsoever"; prohibits entering your workplace or your children's school; prohibits alienating assets or operating joint accounts; prohibits violence against anyone helping you. This is the only order whose breach is a crime. |
| Residence order | Restrains him from dispossessing you; directs him to remove himself from the shared household; restrains him or his relatives from entering the part you occupy; restrains alienation of the household; and directs alternate accommodation of the same level, or the rent for it. Also police protection, and return of stridhan. No order removing a woman from the shared household can be passed. |
| Monetary relief | Loss of earnings; medical expenses; loss caused by destruction, damage or removal of property; and maintenance — expressly available in addition to maintenance under the criminal code. Lump sum or monthly, and it must be adequate, fair and reasonable |
| Custody order | Temporary custody of children, with visitation for the respondent — which the court may refuse if it would be harmful to the child |
| Compensation order | Damages for injuries, expressly including mental torture and emotional distress |
| Interim and ex parte orders | The court may pass interim orders at any stage, and ex parte orders on your affidavit where it is satisfied that the respondent is committing or threatening domestic violence. This is where these cases are actually won. |
Copies of every order are to be given to you free of cost.
Maintenance can be claimed under this Act, under the criminal code, and under the marriage laws. The obvious questions — can I claim under more than one, and does he pay twice — were answered by the Supreme Court in November 2020, and its directions apply across the country. Almost no page on this subject mentions them.
| The direction | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Disclose earlier maintenance; the later court sets it off | You may claim in more than one proceeding, but you must disclose what has already been awarded, and the second court adjusts for it. He does not pay twice — and you do not lose the right to claim |
| An affidavit of disclosure of assets and liabilities shall be filed by both parties in all maintenance proceedings | This is now standard everywhere. The other side has four weeks to reply, with a limited number of opportunities. It is the single most useful document in a maintenance case |
| Maintenance runs from the date of the application | Not from the date of the order. Delay in the proceeding does not cost you the arrears |
| The factors for quantum | The status of the parties; the needs and reasonable wants of the applicant; the qualifications and employment of both; whether she gave up a career; the standard of living during the marriage; his income, his dependants and his other obligations; and the children's food, clothing, residence, medical needs and education |
| Enforcement | A maintenance order is enforceable like a civil money decree, with the execution machinery that comes with that |
An order that is not obeyed is worth nothing, and this is where most women are let down. The Act contains a provision that is rarely used and rarely mentioned:
Where monetary relief is ordered and not paid, the Magistrate may direct the respondent's employer, or a person who owes him money, to pay the amount directly to you — deducted from his salary or from the debt.
Alongside that, the Protection Officer's statutory duties include ensuring that monetary relief orders are executed. And an unpaid maintenance order can be executed as a civil money decree.
This is the part of the Act most people never use, and it exists precisely for a woman who cannot afford a lawyer or does not know where to start.
A Protection Officer is a state-appointed officer — as far as possible a woman — whose statutory duties include:
Registered service providers — voluntary organisations recorded under the Act — can also record a domestic incident report and arrange a medical examination or shelter.
The Act says the Magistrate shall endeavour to fix the first hearing ordinarily within three days of receiving the application, and to dispose of it within sixty days of the first hearing.
Courts have read those words as directory rather than mandatory — the word is "endeavour", and a High Court has observed that it may not be possible or practical to dispose of every application in sixty days.
Everything civil about this Act turns criminal at one point, and it is worth being precise about it.
| Point | Position |
|---|---|
| What is the offence | Breach by the respondent of a protection order or interim protection order already made by the Magistrate |
| Punishment | Up to one year, or a fine up to ₹20,000, or both |
| Classification | Cognizable and non-bailable |
| Which court | As far as practicable, the same Magistrate who made the order |
| Other charges | The Magistrate may also frame charges for cruelty, or under the Dowry Prohibition Act |
| Proof | The court may conclude that the offence has been committed on the sole testimony of the aggrieved person |
This page explains the law in general terms. It cannot tell you what to do about your own facts — only an advocate who has read your papers can do that. You can look through the advocates associated with Legal Space Services who practise in family and matrimonial matters, see their enrolment details and areas of practice, and send a consultation request. Searching and sending a request are free.
The application is made to a Magistrate in a district court complex. Delhi's complexes are Tis Hazari, Karkardooma, Saket, Rohini, Dwarka, Patiala House and Rouse Avenue, serving eleven judicial districts. Which one applies to you depends on where you reside, where the respondent resides or works, or where the cause of action arose — ask at the filing counter or take advice, and do not rely on an unofficial district map.
In Delhi, Protection Officers sit under the Department of Women and Child Development, Government of NCT of Delhi, with an officer attached to each district and a district office you can walk into. The department publishes the current list, with addresses and landlines, on its website — as read in September 2026 it named eighteen officers. Because the list changes, take the current one from the source rather than from any page, including this one: wcd.delhi.gov.in.
Responsibility for the 181 helpline in Delhi has moved between bodies, and some websites still name the previous one. The number is what matters; where you need the current operating arrangement, check the Department of Women and Child Development's own site.
| DV Act application | FIR under Section 85 BNS | Maintenance under the criminal code | Divorce petition | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nature | Civil | Criminal | Quasi-criminal | Civil |
| Court | Magistrate | Magistrate, after police investigation | Magistrate | Family Court |
| Gives you a home? | Yes — residence order | No | No | Only through other proceedings |
| Gives you money? | Yes — maintenance and compensation | No | Yes — maintenance only | Yes, at the end |
| Protection from contact? | Yes — and breach is an offence | Indirectly | No | No |
| Standard of proof | Balance of probabilities | Beyond reasonable doubt | Balance of probabilities | Balance of probabilities |
| Interim relief | Yes — ex parte on affidavit | Not applicable | Yes — interim maintenance | Yes |
| Ends the marriage? | No | No | No | Yes |
Stated plainly: the DV Act is the only proceeding that can give you both a roof and money, and it is the fastest to produce anything, because of the power to make interim and ex parte orders. A cruelty FIR gives you neither a home nor money — it creates criminal jeopardy for the other side, which is a different objective and should be a considered one. Maintenance under the criminal code gives money only. Divorce takes longest and is the only one that ends the marriage.
They are cumulative, not alternatives — subject to the set-off rule on maintenance described above.
An honest account, because panic here produces bad decisions.
Figures placed before Parliament, drawn from national crime records, show cases registered under this Act across India as 446 in 2020, 507 in 2021 and 468 in 2022.
Those numbers look implausibly small for a country of this size, and it is worth understanding why they are not a measure of how much this Act is used. National crime statistics count offences registered by the police. The only offence in this Act is breach of a protection order. The tens of thousands of applications filed every year before Magistrates — for residence, maintenance, protection and custody — are civil proceedings and never enter crime statistics at all.
So the figures measure breaches, not use. Any page that presents them as showing how rare domestic violence litigation is has misread what is being counted.
No — and this is the single biggest misunderstanding about it. The Act is a civil law that gives a Magistrate power to make orders: to stop the violence, to protect your right to live in the house, to order maintenance, to give you custody of the children. There is no offence of "committing domestic violence" under this Act. The only offence in it is breaching a protection order the court has already made. Filing the application does not put anyone in jail and does not lead to arrest.
No. The application goes straight to the Magistrate. The Supreme Court said in 2022 that a High Court had wrongly equated filing an application under this Act with lodging a complaint or starting a prosecution — the Magistrate is not being asked to act on the commission of an offence.
Yes. They do different things and both can run. The Act itself allows its reliefs to be sought in any other civil, family or criminal proceeding, and where a protection order is breached the Magistrate can frame cruelty charges alongside. Our page on Section 85 BNS covers the criminal side.
The civil standard — the balance of probabilities — not "beyond reasonable doubt". That is one reason this route often produces a result long before a criminal case does.
Yes. The Act as printed says the respondent must be an "adult male", but in 2016 the Supreme Court struck those words out as unconstitutional, and held that the proviso fell with them. Female relatives can therefore be respondents. Parliament never amended the printed text, so anyone reading the bare Act — or a page copied from it — will be misled.
You can be. The Act covers a "relationship in the nature of marriage". The Supreme Court set out the test in 2010: the couple must hold themselves out to the world as spouses, be of legal age, be otherwise qualified to marry, and have voluntarily lived together for a significant period. The Court added that merely spending weekends together, or a one-night stand, is not a domestic relationship.
Very likely yes. The Act covers a woman who "is, or has been" in a domestic relationship, and one where the parties "have, at any point of time, lived together". The Supreme Court held in 2015 that a judicially separated wife remains an aggrieved person. For a woman whose marriage has been dissolved the position is arguable rather than settled — put it to an advocate on your facts.
No period is laid down for the application itself, and the Supreme Court has held that the criminal limitation provision does not apply to it. Where the claim is for stridhan still being held, the Court has treated the wrong as a continuing one — so long as the property remains with him, the claim can be made.
Not as it stands. The 2016 decision changed who can be a respondent; it did not change who can be an aggrieved person, and the Act still says "any woman". A man facing violence at home has other remedies, and should take advice on those.
Not without an order. In 2020 a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that an earlier decision restricting the "shared household" to property owned or rented by the husband did not lay down the correct law. A house belonging to the in-laws can be a shared household, and you need no title to claim the right to reside in it. But be clear about what that gives you: the Court also said the Act confers no title or ownership — it secures a right of residence, not a share in the property.
Yes. Among the residence orders the Magistrate can make is a direction to secure alternate accommodation of the same level as you enjoyed, or to pay rent for it.
You can claim under more than one, and the Act says its monetary relief may be granted "in addition to" maintenance under the criminal code. What you cannot do is recover the same money twice. Following the Supreme Court's 2020 directions, you must disclose the earlier order and the later court adjusts or sets off what has already been awarded.
In 2020 the Supreme Court directed that an affidavit of disclosure of assets and liabilities shall be filed by both parties in all maintenance proceedings across the country, with the other side replying within four weeks. It also directed that maintenance run from the date of the application, not the date of the order. Both matter enormously, and both are missing from most pages on this subject.
The Act contains a provision most people never hear about: the Magistrate may direct his employer, or a person who owes him money, to pay you directly — deducting it from his salary or from the debt. Ask your advocate about it. Beyond that, a maintenance order is enforceable like a civil money decree.
A state-appointed officer, as far as possible a woman, who is the practical entry point to this Act. The Protection Officer records the domestic incident report, can file the application to the Magistrate for you, must ensure you get free legal aid, can arrange a shelter home and a medical examination, and is charged with ensuring that monetary relief orders are actually executed. In Delhi they sit under the Department of Women and Child Development, with an officer for each district.
The Act says the Magistrate shall endeavour to dispose of the application within sixty days of the first hearing, and to fix the first hearing ordinarily within three days. Courts have read those words as directory rather than mandatory. Treat sixty days as the standard the law sets, not a promise about your case.
That is the criminal part. Breach of a protection order is punishable with up to one year, or a fine up to ₹20,000, or both. It is cognizable and non-bailable, it is tried as far as possible by the same Magistrate, and the court may conclude that the offence has been committed on your sole testimony. Where he breaches, report it — the whole force of the Act sits in this provision.
Not on the application. It is a civil proceeding and there is no arrest on it. What you must do is appear — the court can pass interim and even ex parte orders on affidavit, and staying away means those are made without your side being heard. File the disclosure affidavit, disclose any maintenance you are already paying so that it is set off, and do not contact her, sell the house or move assets while orders are in force.
Yes, but rarely. In 2025 the Supreme Court confirmed that the High Court can quash proceedings arising from a Section 12 application, while saying it should be very slow and circumspect and interfere only in a case of gross illegality or gross abuse of the process of law. See our page on Section 528 BNSS. An appeal to the Court of Session within thirty days is usually the better route.
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