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Ajay Kumar v. Lata @ Sharuti & Ors.

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 473Decided 8 Apr 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 617 of 2019
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice Hemant Gupta

Background

After her husband Vijay Kumar died, a widow and her minor child sought maintenance under the Domestic Violence Act against Vijay's brother, Ajay Kumar (the appellant), on the ground that the two brothers had jointly run a family kiryana (grocery) business and that the family home where she lived was ancestral joint-family property. The trial court and the Additional Sessions Judge granted interim maintenance (Rs. 4,000 to the widow and Rs. 2,000 to the child), which the Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld. Ajay Kumar appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that merely sharing a joint family business was not a lawful basis to fasten maintenance liability on him as a "respondent" under the Act.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined the Act's definitions of "respondent," "domestic relationship," and "shared household," noting these are deliberately broad and can extend liability to relatives of the husband, including a brother, where the complainant lived in a joint family household and shared in family business income. The Court held that, at this interim stage, the averments in the complaint (joint ancestral home, joint business, shared income) were sufficient to justify the interim maintenance order, while whether the statutory conditions are strictly met will ultimately be decided as a matter of evidence at trial. The Court therefore upheld the maintenance direction and ordered that any arrears be cleared within four months in equal monthly instalments, while clarifying that this order and the orders of the courts below would not bind the final adjudication of the underlying domestic violence complaint. The appeal was accordingly disposed of on these terms.

Lesson Learnt

Under the Domestic Violence Act, relatives of a husband (not just the husband himself) can be made liable for interim maintenance if they share a joint household or joint family business with the aggrieved woman: courts will sustain such interim orders on a prima facie basis, leaving the deeper factual dispute to be resolved at the full trial.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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