Protection officer’s report not must to act in domestic violence cases

As per the case, the couple got married in 1993 and had two children. They were residing at TP Chatram area when the defacto complainant’s husband, working at the Chennai Corporation, developed an intimacy with his colleague and started harassing Kalaiarasi and the two children. This led to the wife initiating proceedings against him under the DV Act at the Mahila Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Chennai.

Seeking to quash the same, the husband had moved a plea stating that the allegations made by his wife were all false and that the proceedings under the DV Act had been initiated even without the report of the Protection Officer.

Justice PN Prakash, on pointing out that the report of the Protection Officer is not a sine qua non for initiating proceedings under the DV Act, said: “In this case, the wife had lodged a complaint on March 1, 2016, to the Protection Officer who conducted an inquiry on March 31, 2016, in which, the husband also appeared.”

“That apart, it is seen that the wife had fixed the marriage of her daughter during the pendency of these proceedings and the husband was determined to spoil everything. Therefore, the criminal miscellaneous petition moved by the wife seeking to restrain her husband from causing any disturbance at the marriage function was granted by the trial court on April 10, 2017,” Justice Prakash said while dismissing the plea as devoid of merits.