DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT CAN ALSO PROSECUTE WOMEN

The central government says the Domestic Violence Act, enacted with a view to protect women, can also be used to prosecute women. Backing the recent decisions of some courts in Delhi to invoke the civil law against women, an affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court by the Women and Child Development Ministry says that “the main purpose of the Act is to protect women from domestic violence but not solely protect them from male persons…right of the victim against domestic violence can’t be guided by the gender of the perpetrator.” The central government’s stand came in response to a petition by a widow questioning the fact that the Act was invoked against women by a few courts in the capital. Varsha Kapoor, through her lawyer Arvind Jain, urged the court to strike down a section in the Act that allowed for women to be prosecuted.