Domestic violence:

• Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another.
• It includes physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, and emotional abuse.
• The frequency and severity of domestic violence can vary dramatically; however, the one constant component of domestic violence is one partner’s consistent efforts to maintain power and control over the other.
• In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court has widened the scope of the Domestic Violence Act by ordering the deletion of the words “adult male” from it, paving the way for prosecution of women and even non-adults for subjecting a woman relative to violence and harassment.

Domestic Violence Act, 2005:

• The apex court has ordered striking down of the two words from Section 2(q) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, which deals with respondents who can be sued and prosecuted under the Act for harassing a married woman in her matrimonial home.
• Referring to earlier verdicts, the Supreme court said that the microscopic difference between male and female, adult and nonadult, regard being had to the object sought to be achieved by the 2005 Act, is neither real or substantial, nor does it have any rational relation to the object of the legislation.
• The apex court Bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and R.F. Nariman in its judgment said that the remaining part of the legislation had been kept untouched and would remain operative.