Definitions — Aggrieved Person, Domestic Relationship, Shared Household (Section 2)

Almost every contest under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 is won or lost at the threshold of definitions. Before a Magistrate can grant a protection, residence, monetary or custody order, the applicant must clear three gateways carved out by Section 2: she must be an aggrieved person under clause (a), she must show a domestic relationship under clause (f), and — for the most prized relief of all, the right to reside — the premises must answer the description of a shared household under clause (s). Layered onto these is the definition of respondent in clause (q), which decides whom she may proceed against. This chapter maps each definition against the bare text and the controlling case law, from S.R. Batra through Hiral P. Harsora to Satish Chander Ahuja and Prabha Tyagi, so that you can argue the gateway, not just recite it. For the larger architecture of the statute, read this chapter alongside the introduction, object, background and scheme and the definition of domestic violence under Section 3.

Why Section 2 is the gateway to every relief

The 2005 Act is reliefs-driven. Sections 18 to 22 empower the Magistrate to pass protection orders, residence orders, monetary relief, custody orders and compensation. But none of those provisions operates in the abstract: each is keyed to an “aggrieved person” proceeding against a “respondent” in respect of conduct arising out of a “domestic relationship.” Section 2 is therefore not a glossary tucked away for completeness; it is the load-bearing wall of the whole structure. A respondent who can persuade the court that the applicant is not an aggrieved person, or that no domestic relationship ever existed, or that the disputed premises are not a shared household, defeats the petition at the doorstep without ever reaching the merits of the alleged violence.

For this reason the Supreme Court has repeatedly insisted that the definitions be read purposively, in light of the Act being a piece of social welfare legislation enacted to give effect to Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution and India's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The interpretive instinct, post-2016, has been expansive rather than constricting — a marked shift from the narrow early reading in S.R. Batra v. Taruna Batra. Understanding that trajectory is the key to answering most examination problems on Section 2.

Aggrieved person — Section 2(a)

Section 2(a) defines an “aggrieved person” as any woman who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent and who alleges to have been subjected to any act of domestic violence by the respondent. Three elements are packed into this clause. First, the applicant must be a woman — the Act is gender-specific on the complainant side and confers no standing on a man as an aggrieved person, however genuine his grievance. Second, she must be, or must have been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent, which routes the enquiry into Section 2(f). Third, she must allege that she has been subjected to an act of domestic violence; the threshold is one of allegation, not of proof, so that the petition is competent on its averments and the truth of the allegations is decided at trial.

The use of the present-and-past tense — “is, or has been” — is deliberate and consequential. A woman does not lose her status as an aggrieved person merely because the relationship has ended. A divorced or deserted wife, a widow who was driven out, or a live-in partner whose relationship has broken down can all qualify, provided the alleged violence is referable to a relationship that existed at some point. This was settled in Prabha Tyagi v. Kamlesh Devi (discussed below), where the Court held that the domestic relationship need not be subsisting on the date the application is filed.

Domestic relationship — Section 2(f) and its five limbs

Section 2(f) defines a “domestic relationship” as a relationship between two persons who live or have, at any point of time, lived together in a shared household, when they are related by consanguinity, marriage, or through a relationship in the nature of marriage, adoption or are family members living together as a joint family. The clause has two cumulative requirements: (i) the parties must live, or have at any point lived, together in a shared household; and (ii) the relationship must fall within one of five enumerated categories — consanguinity, marriage, a relationship in the nature of marriage, adoption, or family members living together as a joint family.

The phrase “have, at any point of time, lived together” imports a temporal sweep that mirrors the “has been” in Section 2(a). Past cohabitation is enough; the parties need not be living together when the petition is filed. The Act does not prescribe any minimum duration of cohabitation, though D. Velusamy v. D. Patchaiammal cautions that fleeting association will not do. The five categories are wide enough to embrace not only the wife but the mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, sister, daughter and other female members of a joint family, and the live-in partner. The interaction between this clause and the shared-household requirement is examined in detail in the chapter on the definition of domestic violence.

Relationship in the nature of marriage: the Velusamy test

The most litigated limb of Section 2(f) is the “relationship in the nature of marriage,” which extends the Act's protection to live-in partners. In D. Velusamy v. D. Patchaiammal, (2010) 10 SCC 469, a two-Judge Bench (Katju and Thakur, JJ.) equated this expression with a “common-law marriage” and laid down four cumulative requirements: (a) the couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses; (b) they must be of legal age to marry; (c) they must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried; and (d) they must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a significant period of time. The Court added that the parties must have lived together in a “shared household” as defined in Section 2(s), and bluntly observed that merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would not create a domestic relationship.

A controversial consequence of the third requirement is that a woman who knowingly enters a relationship with a man who is already married — and is thus not “otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage” — may fall outside the protection of the Act. The Court frankly acknowledged that this might cause hardship to such women but held that it was for the legislature, not the judiciary, to remedy it. Velusamy remains the touchstone, and any examination answer on live-in relationships under the DV Act must reproduce its four-part test accurately.

Indra Sarma: refining the live-in enquiry

Three years after Velusamy, the Supreme Court returned to the live-in question in Indra Sarma v. V.K.V. Sarma, (2013) 15 SCC 755. The appellant had lived with the respondent, a married man, for nearly eighteen years, and on the breakdown of the relationship sought relief under the Act. Applying Velusamy, the Court held that because the respondent was already married and the appellant was aware of that fact, theirs was not a “relationship in the nature of marriage” within Section 2(f), and she was therefore not an aggrieved person entitled to relief.

The lasting contribution of Indra Sarma is its set of illustrative guidelines for testing whether a live-in arrangement is in the nature of marriage. These include the duration of the relationship, the existence of a shared household, the pooling of resources and financial arrangements, domestic arrangements such as entrusting the woman with running the home, a sexual relationship aimed at emotional and intimate companionship and procreation rather than mere pleasure, the bearing and raising of children, socialisation in public, and the intention and conduct of the parties. The Court was careful to say that not all live-in relationships will amount to a relationship in the nature of marriage, and that these are guiding factors to be weighed in the totality of the circumstances. Read Indra Sarma as the fact-application companion to the doctrinal skeleton in Velusamy.

Respondent — Section 2(q) and the proviso

As originally enacted, Section 2(q) defined a “respondent” as any adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person and against whom the aggrieved person has sought any relief under this Act. A proviso added that an aggrieved wife or female living in a relationship in the nature of a marriage may also file a complaint against a relative of the husband or the male partner. The main clause thus appeared to confine respondents to adult males, while the proviso opened a narrow window to proceed against the male partner's relatives — a category that, on its face, could include female relatives.

The early controversy was whether the proviso truly permitted female relatives, such as a mother-in-law or sister-in-law, to be arrayed as respondents. The Supreme Court resolved this in Sandhya Manoj Wankhade v. Manoj Bhimrao Wankhade, (2011) 3 SCC 650, holding that the proviso carved out an exception and that there was no restriction confining “relatives” to males. A wife could therefore implead the husband's mother and sister as respondents. The legislature, the Court reasoned, never intended to shield female relatives of the husband from the operation of the Act.

Hiral P. Harsora: “adult male” struck down

The decisive development came in Hiral P. Harsora v. Kusum Narottamdas Harsora, (2016) 10 SCC 165 (AIR 2016 SC 4774). The constitutional validity of the words “adult male” in Section 2(q) was challenged on the ground that, by confining respondents to adult males, the provision under-protected women who were harassed by female relatives or by minors. A two-Judge Bench (Kurian Joseph and R.F. Nariman, JJ.) agreed and held that the classification embedded in “adult male” bore no rational nexus to the object of the Act and offended Article 14.

The Court accordingly directed that the words “adult male” before the word “person” in Section 2(q) be struck down. Two further consequences followed. First, with the gender and age limitation gone, a respondent may now be any “person” — male or female, adult or minor — who is or has been in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person. A daughter-in-law may therefore proceed directly against her mother-in-law as a principal respondent, not merely as a “relative.” Second, the proviso to Section 2(q), which had been necessary only to reach the male partner's relatives, was rendered otiose and stood deleted. Harsora is thus the single most important case on the respondent definition and a frequent examination favourite.

Shared household — Section 2(s): the statutory text

Section 2(s) defines a “shared household” as a household where the person aggrieved lives or at any stage has lived in a domestic relationship either singly or along with the respondent and includes such a household whether owned or tenanted either jointly by the aggrieved person and the respondent, or owned or tenanted by either of them in respect of which either the aggrieved person or the respondent or both jointly or singly have any right, title, interest or equity and includes such a household which may belong to the joint family of which the respondent is a member, irrespective of whether the respondent or the aggrieved person has any right, title or interest in the shared household.

The definition is deliberately broad. It covers premises the aggrieved person lives in or has at any stage lived in, whether owned or tenanted, whether jointly or singly held, and — crucially — a household belonging to the joint family of which the respondent is a member even if neither the aggrieved person nor the respondent holds any title in it. The Supreme Court in S.R. Batra candidly described the clause as “not very happily worded” and the product of clumsy drafting, which is precisely why its interpretation has swung so dramatically over the years. The right to reside in the shared household is conferred by Section 17 and enforced through residence orders under Section 19, which are taken up in the chapter on the procedure for obtaining reliefs.

S.R. Batra v. Taruna Batra: the narrow view

The first authoritative reading of Section 2(s) came in S.R. Batra v. Taruna Batra, (2007) 3 SCC 169. Taruna Batra had lived with her husband on the second floor of a house at Ashok Vihar, Delhi, that was owned exclusively by her mother-in-law and not by the husband. After matrimonial discord she sought to enforce a right of residence in that house. A two-Judge Bench (S.B. Sinha and Markandey Katju, JJ.) held that a “shared household” could only mean the house belonging to or taken on rent by the husband, or the house belonging to the joint family of which the husband is a member. Because the property was the exclusive self-acquired property of the mother-in-law, it was not a shared household, and the wife had no right to reside there under the Act.

The practical effect of Batra was severe: it excluded from the protective net every matrimonial home owned by in-laws or other relatives, which in Indian conditions describes a very large proportion of households. The narrow reading was widely criticised as defeating the residence right that Sections 17 and 19 were designed to secure. For over a decade, however, it bound the High Courts and was the starting point of every residence dispute.

Satish Chander Ahuja: Batra overruled

The narrow view was decisively buried in Satish Chander Ahuja v. Sneha Ahuja, (2021) 1 SCC 414 (AIR 2020 SC 5397). The daughter-in-law had lived on the first floor of a Friends Colony, Delhi, house owned solely by her father-in-law, who sued her for possession after the marriage broke down. A three-Judge Bench (Ashok Bhushan, R. Subhash Reddy and M.R. Shah, JJ.) held that the definition of “shared household” in Section 2(s) is not restricted to a household owned or tenanted by the husband; it extends to a household in which the aggrieved person lives or has lived in a domestic relationship, including one belonging to a relative of the husband with whom she has lived in such relationship.

The Court expressly held that the contrary view in S.R. Batra v. Taruna Batra did not lay down the correct law and overruled it. It clarified that whether a particular premises is a shared household is a question of fact to be determined on the evidence in each case, and that the words “at any stage has lived” do not mean that wherever a woman has lived with relatives of the husband becomes a shared household; there must be a domestic relationship and the parties must have lived together in that household. The judgment also reconciled the residence right under the DV Act with civil suits for possession, holding that a decree in a possession suit does not automatically extinguish the right to reside, which must be adjudicated by the Magistrate. Satish Chander Ahuja is now the leading authority on Section 2(s).

Prabha Tyagi: residence right without actual residence

Prabha Tyagi v. Kamlesh Devi, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 607 (reported at (2022) 8 SCC 90), pushed the protective reading further. A widow, who had married into a family but had not actually resided in the matrimonial home, sought relief under the Act. The Supreme Court (M.R. Shah and B.V. Nagarathna, JJ.) held two things of lasting importance for Section 2. First, every woman in a domestic relationship has a right to reside in the shared household under Section 17(1), and that right is not conditional on her having actually resided in the shared household at any stage; it is enough that the domestic relationship exists. Second, a subsisting domestic relationship at the date of the application is not a precondition to maintaining a petition, so that a divorced or deserted woman may seek relief for acts of domestic violence committed while the relationship existed.

Read together, Satish Chander Ahuja and Prabha Tyagi represent the high-water mark of the expansive interpretation: ownership by in-laws is no bar, and actual past residence is not indispensable to the residence right. Candidates should be able to state precisely which proposition each case stands for, because examiners frequently test the distinction between the shared-household enquiry under Section 2(s) and the residence-right enquiry under Section 17.

Temporal reach: V.D. Bhanot and Inderjit Singh Grewal

Because Sections 2(a) and 2(f) speak of relationships that “has been” or were lived in “at any point of time,” the Act reaches back in time. In V.D. Bhanot v. Savita Bhanot, (2012) 3 SCC 183 (AIR 2012 SC 965), the wife had been driven out of the matrimonial home before the Act came into force on 26 October 2006. The Supreme Court held that conduct and a domestic relationship existing prior to the commencement of the Act could be taken into account, and that a woman who had shared a household in the past, though no longer residing with her husband, could maintain a petition for relief. The Act, in that sense, has a retroactive operation in respect of past domestic relationships whose effects continue.

The temporal reach is not, however, unlimited. In Inderjit Singh Grewal v. State of Punjab, (2011) 12 SCC 588, the Supreme Court indicated that the period of limitation under Section 468 of the Code of Criminal Procedure could apply to complaints under the Act, so that stale grievances may be barred. The combined message is that while a past or non-subsisting relationship is no obstacle to standing as an aggrieved person, the relief must still be sought within a reasonable and legally permissible period. These temporal questions intersect closely with the limitation and procedure points discussed in the procedure chapter.

Ancillary definitions: child, monetary relief, Magistrate and Protection Officer

Section 2 contains several supporting definitions that frequently surface in problems. “Child” under Section 2(b) means any person below the age of eighteen years and includes any adopted, step or foster child — relevant to custody orders under Section 21 and to monetary relief for a child's maintenance. “Monetary relief” under Section 2(k) means the compensation the Magistrate may order the respondent to pay to meet the expenses incurred and losses suffered by the aggrieved person and any child as a result of the domestic violence. “Domestic violence” under Section 2(g) takes the meaning assigned to it in Section 3, the subject of a separate chapter.

On the institutional side, “Magistrate” under Section 2(i) means a Judicial Magistrate of the first class or a Metropolitan Magistrate exercising jurisdiction under the Code of Criminal Procedure in the area where the aggrieved person resides, the respondent resides, or the cause of action arose. “Protection Officer” under Section 2(n) and “service provider” under Section 2(r) identify the support apparatus the Act creates — explored in the chapters on the powers and duties of Protection Officers and on service providers. Mastery of these ancillary definitions rounds out a complete answer on Section 2 and links the gateway definitions to the machinery that gives them effect.

Examination synthesis and common traps

For revision, fix four propositions. One: the aggrieved person is always a woman, but the respondent, after Hiral P. Harsora, may be any person regardless of gender or age, and the proviso to Section 2(q) stands deleted as otiose. Two: a domestic relationship requires both past or present cohabitation in a shared household and one of the five categories in Section 2(f), with live-in relationships filtered through the four-part Velusamy test and the Indra Sarma guidelines. Three: the shared household under Section 2(s) is no longer confined to the husband's property — S.R. Batra has been overruled by Satish Chander Ahuja, and after Prabha Tyagi the residence right does not even require prior actual residence. Four: the definitions reach back in time per V.D. Bhanot, subject to limitation as flagged in Inderjit Singh Grewal.

The commonest traps are: citing S.R. Batra as good law (it is overruled); confusing the shared-household enquiry under Section 2(s) with the residence-right enquiry under Section 17; assuming a man can be an aggrieved person (he cannot); and forgetting that the proviso to Section 2(q) is no longer operative after Harsora. Anchor every answer in the bare text first and then layer the case law in chronological order, and revisit the Domestic Violence Act notes hub to see how Section 2 connects to the reliefs and machinery in the rest of the statute.