Court case(2016) 10 SCC 165

A mother, Kusum Narottamdas Harsora, and her daughter filed complaints under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 against the son / brother and against female members of the family. The women respondents sought to be discharged on the ground that s. 2(q) defined "respondent" as an "adult male person", and that the proviso, which allowed complaints against relatives of the husband or male partner, applied only to a wife or a woman in a relationship in the nature of marriage. The question was taken to the Bombay High Court and then to the Supreme Court, where the constitutional validity of the words "adult male" in s. 2(q) was in issue.

R.F. Nariman J., for the Court, held that the words "adult male" in s. 2(q) were discriminatory and violated Article 14. The object of the Act, as its preamble and scheme show, is to provide more effective protection to women against domestic violence of every kind by persons in a domestic relationship with them. Violence, harassment and dispossession may be committed by women and by non-adults as much as by adult men, and the Act's own provisions, such as residence and protection orders against relatives, contemplate this. A classification limiting respondents to adult males had no rational nexus with the object, and would allow the Act to be defeated, for instance by having a woman or a minor carry out an eviction. The words "adult male" were struck down; the remainder of s. 2(q) was workable without them, and the proviso became redundant. The complaints could proceed against the women respondents.