Counselling and Welfare Expert Assistance (Section 14)

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 is unusual among Indian statutes in that it does not merely command and punish — it also pauses, listens and attempts repair. Section 14 empowers the Magistrate to direct the respondent or the aggrieved person, singly or jointly, to undergo counselling; Section 15 lets the court draw on the secured assistance of a welfare expert; and Section 16 allows the entire proceeding to be conducted in camera. Read together, these three provisions form the Act's "therapeutic" wing — a deliberate softening of the adversarial process to accommodate the intimacy and shame that surround domestic abuse. Yet the softening is closely policed. As the case law makes clear, counselling under the Act can never become a back-door to forced reconciliation, and the aggrieved woman's free, informed consent is the precondition for every step. This chapter dissects Section 14 clause by clause, situates it within Rule 14 of the 2006 Rules, and connects it to Sections 15 and 16 and the broader civil-criminal hybrid character of the DV Act.

The Text and Architecture of Section 14

Section 14 sits in Chapter IV of the Act, the chapter dealing with the procedure for obtaining reliefs, immediately after Section 12 (application to the Magistrate) and Section 13 (service of notice). The provision is short. Sub-section (1) reads: "The Magistrate may, at any stage of the proceedings under this Act, direct the respondent or the aggrieved person, either singly or jointly, to undergo counselling with any member of a service provider who possess such qualifications and experience in counselling as may be prescribed." Sub-section (2) adds a timing discipline: "Where the Magistrate has issued any direction under sub-section (1), he shall fix the next date of hearing of the case within a period not exceeding two months."

Three structural features deserve immediate attention. First, the power is discretionary — the word is may, not shall — so a Magistrate is never obliged to refer parties to counselling. Second, the power is exercisable "at any stage," so counselling is not confined to the threshold of the case but can be ordered mid-stream, even after interim reliefs are granted. Third, the referral may be to either party "singly" or to both "jointly," a flexibility that matters greatly: joint counselling brings the parties face to face, while single counselling allows the court to address the respondent's conduct or the aggrieved person's needs separately, without compelling a confrontation. The two-month outer limit in sub-section (2) prevents counselling from becoming a device to indefinitely stall reliefs — a real risk, since respondents frequently seek delay. For the place of Section 14 within the broader filing and hearing sequence, see our chapter on the procedure for obtaining reliefs.

Who May Counsel: Qualifications and the Service-Provider Link

Section 14(1) does not let any well-meaning person counsel the parties. The counselling must be conducted by "any member of a service provider who possess such qualifications and experience in counselling as may be prescribed." Two limbs follow. The first ties counselling to the institution of the service provider — the registered organisations recognised under Section 10 of the Act, whose role we examine separately in our chapter on service providers. The second makes qualifications a matter of delegated legislation, to be "prescribed" by rules.

The prescription is found in Rule 14 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Rules, 2006, read with the definition of "Counsellor" in Rule 2 as a member of a service provider competent to give counselling under Section 14(1). Rule 14 sets out an elaborate code of conduct for the counsellor, and its tenor is unmistakably protective. The counsellor is to proceed "bearing in mind that the counselling shall be in the nature of getting an assurance, that the incidence of domestic violence shall not get repeated." Crucially, the respondent "shall not be allowed to plead any counter justification for the alleged act of domestic violence," and is required to "furnish an undertaking" to the counsellor that he will refrain from causing such violence. This is a far cry from the morally neutral mediation of a commercial dispute: the design presumes the abuse and seeks its cessation, not a negotiated apportionment of fault.

Rule 14: The Procedural Spine of Counselling

Rule 14 is the operative engine behind the bare command of Section 14, and a judiciary aspirant should be able to reproduce its essence. The counsellor is expressly freed from the technical rules of evidence and procedure: he "shall not be bound by the provisions of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, or the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, or the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973," and is to be guided instead "by the principles of fairness and justice and aimed at bringing about a settlement of the dispute." This liberation is what makes counselling capable of reaching outcomes a formal trial cannot — but it also explains why the rule hedges the process with safeguards.

If the counsellor arrives at a resolution, the rule directs that he "shall record the terms of settlement and get the same endorsed by the parties." The settlement is not self-executing; it returns to the Magistrate, who must apply judicial mind before it acquires the force of an order. Where the counsellor concludes that there is a risk of repetition of physical violence, a Domestic Incident Report under Section 10(2) read with the relevant rule must be on record before counselling proceeds. The cumulative effect is a process that is informal in form but tightly supervised in substance — a settlement reached in the counsellor's room has no legal life until the court adopts it.

Counselling Is Not Forced Reconciliation

The single most examined proposition about Section 14 is that it must never be used to coerce a battered woman into returning to or settling with her abuser. This is not a sentiment but a holding. In a widely-cited 2015 decision, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court (Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Roshan Dalvi) laid down detailed guidelines for counselling and mediation under the Act. The Bench held that joint counselling and mediation "shall be commenced only upon the voluntary, informed consent of the aggrieved woman," and that "there shall be no pressure or force upon her to settle her claim or grievance." Service providers, police and NGOs were directed to prominently display that the aggrieved woman has the choice of her future course of action and that any joint counselling with the husband or in-laws will be done only with her consent.

The reasoning flows from the object of the Act itself. The DV Act exists because the family is, for many women, the very site of violence; a mechanism that pressures the woman back into that site would defeat the statute. Counselling under Section 14 is therefore a tool offered to the aggrieved person, not a hurdle imposed upon her. A Magistrate who treats Section 14 as a routine, mandatory pre-condition to hearing the application — "go for counselling first" — misreads both the discretionary "may" and the protective architecture of Rule 14. For the substantive understanding of what the woman is being protected from, see our chapter on the definition of domestic violence.

The Civil-Criminal Hybrid and Why Counselling Fits

Counselling and in-camera proceedings would sit oddly in a purely penal statute. Their presence reflects the hybrid character of the DV Act, authoritatively explained in Kunapareddy alias Nookala Shanka Balaji v. Kunapareddy Swarna Kumari, AIR 2016 SC 2519. The Supreme Court held that the reliefs available under the Act are "in the nature of civil remedies" and that orders passed by the Magistrate are primarily of a civil character, even though enforcement of breach (under Section 31) engages the criminal jurisdiction of the court. It was on this footing that the Court permitted amendment of a DV application to avoid multiplicity of litigation, treating the proceeding as essentially civil in substance.

This characterisation makes Section 14 coherent. A criminal court trying an offence cannot send a complainant and accused off to be "counselled" toward a settlement of the crime; but a court dispensing civil, protective and compensatory reliefs can sensibly attempt repair of the relationship and prevention of recurrence. The point was reinforced in Kamatchi v. Lakshmi Narayanan, (2022) — where the Supreme Court held that an application under Section 12 is not a "complaint" within the meaning of Section 2(d) CrPC, so that the limitation bar of Section 468 CrPC does not apply to it. The proceeding is sui generis: clothed in criminal procedure for delivery, but civil in its protective heart, which is exactly the soil in which a counselling provision can grow.

Section 15: The Assistance of Welfare Experts

Section 15 is the natural companion to Section 14 and is frequently examined alongside it. It provides: "In any proceeding under this Act, the Magistrate may secure the services of such person, preferably a woman, whether related to the aggrieved person or not, including a person engaged in promoting family welfare as he thinks fit, for the purpose of assisting him in discharging his functions." Where Section 14 deploys an external counsellor to work on the parties, Section 15 brings an expert in to assist the court itself.

Several features track the protective logic of the Act. The assistance is again discretionary ("may"). The expert is "preferably a woman," recognising that an aggrieved woman may speak more freely to, and be better understood by, a woman familiar with the dynamics of domestic abuse. The expert need not be related to the aggrieved person and may be "a person engaged in promoting family welfare," which contemplates social workers and welfare professionals rather than only lawyers. The purpose is candidly stated: to assist the Magistrate "in discharging his functions" — that is, to lend the court a social-work perspective on questions such as the genuineness of distress, the safety of a shared household arrangement, or the welfare of children, which a conventionally-trained Magistrate may not be equipped to assess alone. Section 15 thus imports a measure of the family-court ethos into what is procedurally a criminal-side proceeding.

Section 16: Proceedings In Camera

Section 16 completes the chapter's protective triad: "If the Magistrate considers that the circumstances of the case so warrant, and if either party to the proceedings so desires, he may conduct the proceedings under this Act in camera." The provision is triggered in two ways — the Magistrate's own view that circumstances warrant privacy, and a desire expressed by "either party." The discretion remains with the court ("may"), but a request by a party is a recognised ground for exercising it.

The rationale is the protection of dignity and privacy. Testimony in a DV proceeding often involves intimate, humiliating and traumatic details — sexual abuse, economic deprivation, conduct within the bedroom and the household. Compelling a woman to narrate these in open court, before a gallery, can re-traumatise her and deter genuine victims from coming forward at all. By allowing the room to be cleared, Section 16 lowers the cost of testifying truthfully. Notably, the right to seek in-camera proceedings is available to "either party," so a respondent too may invoke it; but in practice the provision principally shields the aggrieved person. The in-camera power dovetails with the confidentiality that Rule 14 attaches to the counselling process, producing an overall environment in which candour is institutionally encouraged.

Section 16 also has a quiet evidentiary dimension. An in-camera hearing does not dilute the parties' right to a fair adjudication: the respondent retains the right to be heard, to cross-examine and to make submissions; only the public gallery is excluded. The provision is thus a calibrated derogation from the open-court principle, justified by the special vulnerability of victims of intimate violence, and analogous to the in-camera trials contemplated for sexual offences. A Magistrate exercising the Section 16 discretion will weigh the desirability of privacy against the open-justice value, but where the aggrieved person seeks it and the subject matter is intimate, the balance ordinarily favours a closed hearing. Together with the counsellor's confidentiality and the welfare expert's discreet assistance, Section 16 completes a procedural environment in which a woman can disclose abuse without the additional punishment of public exposure.

Consent, the Aggrieved Person and the Limits of Joint Counselling

The pivot of the whole scheme is the consent of the aggrieved person, a status defined in Section 2(a) and unpacked in our chapter on definitions. Who qualifies as an aggrieved person was itself widened by the Supreme Court in Hiral P. Harsora v. Kusum Narottamdas Harsora, AIR 2016 SC 4774, which struck down the words "adult male" in Section 2(q), so that a complaint — and therefore the protective and counselling machinery of the Act — is available against female relatives as well. This expansion matters for Section 14 because joint counselling may now have to be designed around a constellation of respondents (for instance, a husband and his mother and sisters), not a single male abuser.

Even with consent, joint counselling carries inherent risk. The very presence of the abuser can intimidate the woman into accepting an unfair settlement; the power imbalance that produced the violence does not vanish at the counselling table. This is why the Bombay High Court guidelines insist on informed, ongoing consent and a free choice of future course of action, and why Rule 14 forbids the respondent from pleading counter-justification. The structural lesson for a Magistrate is that Section 14 should be approached as an offer, revocable at the woman's instance, and never as leverage. Compensation and protection under Sections 18 to 22 are not bargaining chips to be traded away under the guise of "counselling."

"At Any Stage": Timing the Counselling Referral

The phrase "at any stage of the proceedings" in Section 14(1) gives the Magistrate considerable temporal latitude, and the continuing nature of much domestic abuse makes that latitude meaningful. In Krishna Bhattacharjee v. Sarathi Choudhury, (2016) 2 SCC 705, the Supreme Court held that deprivations such as withholding of stridhan amount to a continuing wrong, so that an aggrieved person does not lose her standing merely because time has passed or judicial separation has intervened. Because the wrong is continuing, the protective remedies — including the possibility of a counselling referral aimed at preventing recurrence — remain live throughout the proceeding.

Practically, the stage at which counselling is ordered should be chosen with care. Ordering counselling before any interim protection is granted may leave the woman exposed during the two-month adjournment that Section 14(2) mandates; the better practice, consistent with the object of the Act, is to secure interim relief under Section 23 first and only then, if appropriate and with consent, explore counselling. The two-month cap is itself a safeguard against weaponised delay: a respondent cannot use a counselling reference to defer adjudication of reliefs indefinitely, because the next date of hearing must fall within two months whether or not the counselling has borne fruit.

The continuing-wrong principle also informs how a Magistrate should read the consequences of a failed counselling. Because each fresh act of deprivation or abuse renews the cause of action, a counselling attempt that breaks down does not exhaust the woman's remedies; she remains free to press her reliefs, and any recurrence of violence during or after the counselling is itself a fresh ground for protection. The two-month adjournment therefore should not be read as a quiet window in which the respondent is immune. Read with the undertaking that Rule 14 extracts from the respondent — a promise to refrain from violence — a breach during the counselling interval is both a breach of that undertaking and a continuing wrong that the court can act upon at the next hearing. This is why securing interim protection under Section 23 before, not after, any counselling reference is the prudent sequence.

Mediation, Settlement and Judicial Supervision

Counselling under Section 14 shades naturally into mediation, and courts have confirmed that a Magistrate exercising DV jurisdiction may also draw on settlement processes. In Mathew Daniel v. Leena Mathew, 2022 (Kerala High Court, Justice Kauser Edappagath), it was held that the Magistrate dealing with a DV proceeding has the power to refer the matter to mediation under Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure, to record the resulting compromise, and to pass an order in terms of the settlement. This confirms the civil-side character described in Kunapareddy and gives the Section 14 counselling power a recognised settlement-recording dimension.

The decisive control, however, remains judicial supervision. Whether a resolution is reached through a Rule 14 counsellor or a Section 89 CPC mediator, the terms do not bind until the court endorses them; the Magistrate must be satisfied that the settlement is genuine, voluntary and not the product of pressure on the aggrieved woman. A settlement that, on its face, surrenders protective or maintenance reliefs in circumstances suggesting coercion ought not to be mechanically rubber-stamped. The recurring judicial theme is that the Act's machinery — counsellor, welfare expert, mediator, in-camera hearing — is there to serve the aggrieved person's autonomy, not to engineer her quiescence.

Counselling, Protection Officers and the Support Network

Section 14 does not operate in isolation; it is embedded in a network of functionaries. The Protection Officer, whose role is detailed in our chapter on the powers and duties of Protection Officers, is the court's principal agent for giving practical effect to its orders, including ensuring that the aggrieved person can access counselling and other services. Service providers supply the counsellors contemplated by Section 14(1). Welfare experts under Section 15 advise the court. Together they convert the Act's promise of holistic relief — protection, residence, monetary relief, custody and counselling — into something an isolated complainant could not assemble alone.

For the judiciary aspirant, the examiner's favourite framing is comparative: distinguish the counsellor (an external service-provider member working on the parties under Section 14 and Rule 14), the welfare expert (a court-appointed assistant under Section 15, preferably a woman, advising the Magistrate), and the Protection Officer (a statutory officer who files Domestic Incident Reports and executes the court's directions). Each has a distinct locus, yet all are oriented to the same protective object. A clear grasp of these distinctions, anchored in the statutory text and the holdings in Kunapareddy, Hiral Harsora, Krishna Bhattacharjee and Kamatchi, is what separates a competent answer from a superficial one. For the genesis and design philosophy that explains why these layers exist, return to our introduction to the object, background and scheme of the Act, or browse the full Domestic Violence Act notes hub.

Exam Pointers and Common Pitfalls

A handful of precise points reliably distinguish a strong answer. First, Section 14 uses "may" — counselling is discretionary, never a mandatory pre-condition; an order routinely forcing parties to counselling before hearing the application is bad in law. Second, the two-month cap is in Section 14(2), and it is an outer limit on the next date of hearing, not a duration for the counselling itself. Third, the counsellor must be a qualified member of a service provider (Section 14(1) read with Rule 14 and Rule 2), not an ad hoc nominee. Fourth, Rule 14 bars the respondent from pleading counter-justification and requires an undertaking to refrain from violence — counselling presumes the abuse and targets its cessation.

Common errors to avoid: conflating Section 14 (counselling by a service-provider counsellor, working on the parties) with Section 15 (welfare expert assisting the court, preferably a woman); treating in-camera proceedings under Section 16 as automatic rather than discretionary and request-driven; and, most importantly, suggesting that counselling can be used to compel reconciliation. The 2015 Bombay High Court guidelines and the consistent thrust of the case law foreclose any coercion of the aggrieved woman. Finally, remember the framing supplied by Kunapareddy and Kamatchi: the DV proceeding is civil in substance though tried on the criminal side, which is precisely why a counselling and settlement mechanism can sit comfortably within it.