Court case(2021) 1 SCC 414

The appellant, Satish Chander Ahuja, owned a house in Delhi, which he claimed as his self-acquired property. His son and daughter-in-law, the respondent Sneha Ahuja, lived on the first floor after their marriage. The marriage broke down; the son moved out and divorce proceedings followed, and the daughter-in-law filed an application under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 in which an interim order protected her residence. The father-in-law filed a civil suit for a mandatory injunction to remove her from the house. The trial court decreed the suit on her pleadings without trial, relying on S.R. Batra v. Taruna Batra; the Delhi High Court set the decree aside and remanded the suit. The father-in-law appealed.

A three-judge bench, speaking through Ashok Bhushan J., held that S.R. Batra did not lay down the correct law. The definition of shared household in s. 2(s) is exhaustive: it is the household where the aggrieved woman lives or at any stage has lived in a domestic relationship, and the words "irrespective of whether the respondent or the aggrieved person has any right, title or interest" make ownership irrelevant. A house belonging to the husband's relatives, in which the woman lived in a domestic relationship, may be a shared household. However, the right of residence under s. 17 is not an indefeasible right of ownership; the owner may bring a civil suit for possession or injunction, the order passed under the 2005 Act is relevant evidence in it under s. 26, and the civil court must weigh the claims of both. The High Court's order of remand was upheld, with directions for the trial of the suit.