If a man arranges an alternative accommodation for his estranged wife, she cannot take recourse to the Domestic Violence Act to force her husband to leave his house, the Delhi high court has said.
Justice M L Mehta gave the ruling while disposing of a city’s resident plea for quashing of his wife’s complaint for his prosecution under Domestic Violence Act. As per the Act’s provision, the wife had also sought the man’s eviction from his house.
“The objective of providing right of residence to the wife (under the DV Act) was that she should not be left homeless by an action of the husband,” HC noted saying in a situation like this, court can’t agree with the wife that her husband, who is the owner of the house and in view of the settlement that was arrived at between them by virtue of which she got few properties, should be directed to leave the premises and made to stay in a farm house at far away place at this stage.
Terming the man’s offer to his estranged wife to arrange alternative accommodation for her as “just and reasonable, the court said, “Till alternative arrangement of a suitable two- bed-room accommodation is made by the petitioner for his wife, she would continue to stay there.”
(Source:TOI)
