If the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 has a beating heart, it is Section 18. Every other relief the statute offers — residence, monetary relief, custody, compensation — presupposes that the violence itself can first be stopped, and it is the protection order that does the stopping. Section 18 empowers the Magistrate, once prima facie satisfied that domestic violence has taken place or is likely to take place, to issue a tailored prohibitory injunction restraining the respondent from a list of specified acts. This chapter dissects the section clause by clause, locates it within the Act's larger scheme, and grounds every proposition in the bare provision and the controlling Supreme Court authority an examiner expects you to cite.
Where Section 18 sits in the scheme of the Act
The 2005 Act creates a civil framework of reliefs administered by a Magistrate of the first class or a Metropolitan Magistrate. Chapter IV of the Act — styled “Procedure for Obtaining Orders of Reliefs” — houses the substantive remedies in five operative sections: Section 18 (protection orders), Section 19 (residence orders), Section 20 (monetary relief), Section 21 (custody orders) and Section 22 (compensation orders), with Section 23 supplying the power to grant interim and ex parte relief. Section 18 leads this list deliberately: it is the negative injunction that prevents further harm, whereas the later sections confer positive entitlements. An aggrieved person ordinarily moves the Magistrate through an application under Section 12, and the Magistrate may grant any one or more of these reliefs in the same proceeding.
It is worth fixing the foundational vocabulary before reading Section 18, because the section operates on defined terms. “Domestic violence” is exhaustively defined in Section 3; “aggrieved person” and “respondent” in Section 2; and “domestic relationship” and “shared household” also in Section 2. We treat these at length in our companion chapters on the Act's definitions and the definition of domestic violence, and you should read Section 18 against that backdrop. For the architecture of the Act as a whole, see the introduction, object, background and scheme, and for the broader subject hub, our Domestic Violence Act notes.
The text and structure of Section 18
Section 18 reads: “The Magistrate may, after giving the aggrieved person and the respondent an opportunity of being heard and on being prima facie satisfied that domestic violence has taken place or is likely to take place, pass a protection order in favour of the aggrieved person and prohibit the respondent from —” and then sets out seven clauses, (a) to (g). The structure repays close attention. The opening words contain three distinct ingredients that must all be present: (i) an opportunity of being heard given to both parties; (ii) prima facie satisfaction — not proof beyond reasonable doubt; and (iii) a finding that domestic violence “has taken place or is likely to take place,” the disjunctive expressly authorising preventive, forward-looking orders.
The seven clauses are uniformly prohibitory — every one of them begins with the Magistrate prohibiting the respondent from doing something. This is the defining feature of a protection order: it restrains, it does not command. Positive directions (vacating a shared household, paying maintenance, returning stridhan) belong to Sections 19 and 20, not Section 18. Confusing the two is a common error; the disciplined answer keeps the negative character of Section 18 in view throughout.
“Prima facie satisfied” and the opportunity of being heard
The threshold for a final protection order is prima facie satisfaction. This is a deliberately low evidentiary bar, consistent with the beneficial and preventive purpose of the statute. The Magistrate is not conducting a full criminal trial; he is responding to a domestic relationship in distress and must be able to act before the abuse hardens into something graver. At the same time, the section is scrupulous about natural justice: the protection order may issue only “after giving the aggrieved person and the respondent an opportunity of being heard.” The respondent's right to be heard is therefore built into the final order.
The qualification matters because Section 18 must be read with Section 23, which lets the Magistrate pass interim and ex parte orders. Under Section 23(2), where the Magistrate is satisfied on the basis of an affidavit in the prescribed form that the respondent is committing, has committed, or is likely to commit an act of domestic violence, he may grant an ex parte order under, among others, Section 18 — that is, without first hearing the respondent. The interim and ex parte dimension of relief under the Act was considered in Shalu Ojha v. Prashant Ojha, which underscored that the special procedure of Section 23(2) is not rigidly bound by the Code of Criminal Procedure for the disposal of such applications. The architecture is thus a two-stage one: an urgent ex parte shield under Section 23, followed by a contested final protection order under Section 18 after both sides are heard.
Clauses (a) and (b): the core prohibition on violence and its abetment
Clause (a) prohibits the respondent from “committing any act of domestic violence.” Clause (b) extends the prohibition to “aiding or abetting in the commission of acts of domestic violence.” Together these two clauses are the substantive core of the protection order. Clause (a) operates by reference to the Section 3 definition, which is itself expansive — covering physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic abuse — so a protection order under clause (a) reaches every category of conduct the Act recognises as violence. The disciplined answer always reads clause (a) together with Section 3; the breadth of the prohibition is exactly as broad as the breadth of “domestic violence” itself.
Clause (b) closes an obvious gap. Abuse within a household is frequently a collective enterprise — a husband acting through, or in concert with, relatives. By prohibiting aiding and abetting, the Act ensures the order is not defeated by the respondent simply instigating others. The reach of the term “respondent” itself was expanded by the Supreme Court in Hiral P. Harsora v. Kusum Narottamdas Harsora (2016), where the words “adult male” in the Section 2(q) definition of respondent were struck down as violative of Article 14, so that a protection order may now run against female relatives and non-adults as well. We discuss who can be made a respondent in our chapter on definitions.
Clause (c): keeping the respondent away from work and school
Clause (c) prohibits the respondent from “entering the place of employment of the aggrieved person or, if the person aggrieved is a child, its school or any other place frequented by the aggrieved person.” This clause recognises that domestic violence does not stay at home. An abuser who can no longer reach his victim in the shared household may pursue her at her office or stalk a child at the school gate. Clause (c) extends the protective perimeter outward to those locations.
The phrase “any other place frequented by the aggrieved person” gives the clause useful elasticity — a place of worship, a relative's home, a regular medical facility — so the Magistrate can tailor the geographic scope of the order to the realities of a particular case. This clause is also a good illustration of why protection orders are drafted with specificity: clause (g), discussed below, lets the Magistrate add further “specified” restraints, and a well-drafted clause (c)/(g) combination can erect a precise no-contact geography around the victim.
Clause (d): the no-contact prohibition
Clause (d) prohibits the respondent from “attempting to communicate in any form, whatsoever, with the aggrieved person, including personal, oral or written or electronic or telephonic contact.” This is the statute's no-contact provision, and its drafting is notably modern for 2005: “in any form, whatsoever” coupled with the express inclusion of “electronic” contact captures email, messaging and social-media harassment, not merely letters and telephone calls. Even an attempt to communicate is caught, so the respondent cannot escape liability by arguing the message never reached the victim.
Clause (d) frequently does the heaviest practical work in cases of post-separation harassment, where physical proximity has ended but the abuser continues to intimidate through messages and calls. Because the Act is beneficial legislation, courts read these clauses purposively. In V.D. Bhanot v. Savita Bhanot (2012), the Supreme Court held that even conduct occurring before the Act came into force could be taken into account while passing orders under Sections 18, 19 and 20, and that a woman who had shared a household in the past but was no longer doing so when the Act commenced was still entitled to its protection — confirming that the protective reach of Section 18 is not narrowly confined to a subsisting cohabitation.
Clause (e): alienation of assets, bank accounts and stridhan
Clause (e) prohibits the respondent from “alienating any assets, operating bank lockers or bank accounts used or held or enjoyed by both the parties, jointly by the aggrieved person and the respondent or singly by the respondent, including her stridhan or any other property held either jointly by the parties or separately by them, without the leave of the Magistrate.” This clause guards against economic abuse and the dissipation of matrimonial assets — a common tactic by which a respondent tries to render himself judgment-proof or strip the aggrieved person of property to which she is entitled.
The express mention of stridhan ties clause (e) to the Act's treatment of a woman's separate property. In Krishna Bhattacharjee v. Sarathi Choudhury (2016) 2 SCC 705, the Supreme Court held that the retention of a wife's stridhan by the husband or his family is a continuing offence, so that an application seeking its return is not defeated by limitation, and that a decree of judicial separation does not end a woman's status as an “aggrieved person” entitled to invoke the Act. Read together, clause (e) and Krishna Bhattacharjee mean a respondent cannot quietly alienate stridhan while the matter is pending; he needs the Magistrate's leave, and the underlying claim survives both limitation arguments and judicial separation.
Clause (f): protecting dependants, relatives and supporters
Clause (f) prohibits the respondent from “causing violence to the dependants, other relatives or any person who give the aggrieved person assistance from domestic violence.” This clause extends the protective umbrella beyond the aggrieved person herself to those around her. It is an important and easily-overlooked provision, because abusers frequently retaliate against children, ageing parents, or the relative or friend who sheltered the victim or helped her approach a Protection Officer or service provider.
Clause (f) thus complements the institutional support structure of the Act. The persons who “give the aggrieved person assistance” may include those who route her to the help envisaged by the statute's Protection Officers and service providers. By prohibiting violence against helpers, clause (f) protects the very chain of assistance the Act depends on to function.
Clause (g): the residuary catch-all
Clause (g) permits the Magistrate to prohibit the respondent from “committing any other act as specified in the protection order.” This is the residuary or catch-all clause, and it is what makes the protection order a genuinely tailored instrument rather than a fixed template. Domestic violence is endlessly various, and no closed list of prohibitions could anticipate every form of abusive conduct. Clause (g) lets the Magistrate add bespoke restraints fitted to the facts — for instance, prohibiting the respondent from contacting the victim's employer, from posting about her online, or from entering a specific locality.
The two controlling limits on clause (g) are that the further act must be “specified” in the order — vague, open-ended prohibitions are bad in law and unenforceable — and that it must remain prohibitory in character, consistent with the negative framing of Section 18. A direction that is really a mandatory residence or monetary direction must be founded on Sections 19 or 20 instead. Used properly, clause (g) is the drafting hinge on which a precise and effective protection order turns.
The preventive character: “likely to take place”
One of the most examination-worthy features of Section 18 is hidden in three words of the opening clause: “or is likely to take place.” The Magistrate need not wait for violence to occur. Prima facie satisfaction that domestic violence “is likely to take place” is enough to ground a protection order. This makes Section 18 a forward-looking, preventive remedy, not merely a reactive one — a quasi-injunctive jurisdiction designed to intervene before harm rather than only after it.
This preventive philosophy aligns with the Supreme Court's consistent treatment of the Act as beneficial social legislation to be construed liberally in favour of the aggrieved person. In Prabha Tyagi v. Kamlesh Devi (2022), the Court held that a woman in a domestic relationship has a right to reside in the shared household even in the absence of any act of domestic violence, and that the right to residence may be enforced even where she has not actually resided in the household — underscoring how purposively the Act's protective provisions are read. The same purposive lens governs Section 18: the “likely to take place” limb is to be applied so as to advance, not frustrate, the Act's protective object.
Duration, amendment and discharge of protection orders
How long does a protection order last? Section 25(1) answers that a protection order made under Section 18 “shall be in force till the aggrieved person applies for discharge.” In other words the order endures indefinitely unless and until it is discharged — it does not lapse automatically on the passage of time. Section 25(2) then allows either party to apply to the Magistrate for alteration, modification or revocation of the order on a change of circumstances, with the Magistrate recording reasons in writing. The protection order is therefore durable but not immutable.
The Magistrate's procedural powers over the application that yields a protection order are correspondingly flexible. In Kunapareddy alias Nookala Shanka Balaji v. Kunapareddy Swarna Kumari (2016), the Supreme Court held that a court dealing with an application under the Domestic Violence Act has the power to allow amendment of that application, particularly to take account of subsequent events and to avoid a multiplicity of litigation. The result is a remedy that can be kept current with the facts: the order persists until the aggrieved person seeks discharge, can be modified on changed circumstances under Section 25, and the underlying application itself can be amended. For the mechanics of moving the Magistrate, see our chapter on the procedure for obtaining reliefs.
Teeth of the order: breach under Section 31
A protection order would be hollow without a sanction for its breach, and Section 31 supplies it. Section 31(1) provides that a breach of a protection order, or of an interim protection order, by the respondent shall be an offence under the Act punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine which may extend to twenty thousand rupees, or with both. Critically, Section 32(1) declares that an offence under Section 31(1) shall be cognizable and non-bailable. This converts the otherwise civil character of the proceeding into one with criminal teeth: the moment a protection order is breached, the consequence is a cognizable, non-bailable offence.
Section 31(2) directs that the offence be tried, as far as practicable, by the Magistrate who passed the order whose breach is alleged — sensible, because that Magistrate is already seised of the facts. Section 31(3) adds that while framing charges under sub-section (1), the Magistrate may also frame charges under Section 498A of the Penal Code or any other provision of the Penal Code or the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, if the facts disclose such offences. The enforcement scheme thus loops the Act back into the general criminal law where the conduct warrants it, while keeping the breach itself a self-contained statutory offence.
Protection orders, divorce and the continuing reach of the Act
A recurring question is whether a protection order can be sought once the marriage has ended. The Supreme Court has answered firmly that the dissolution of marriage does not by itself extinguish the right to relief for acts of domestic violence already committed. In Juveria Abdul Majid Patni v. Atif Iqbal Mansoori (2014), the Court held that once an act of domestic violence has been committed, a subsequent decree of divorce will not absolve the respondent of liability nor deny the aggrieved person the benefits to which she is entitled under the Act — including the protective and monetary reliefs and interim or ex parte orders. The character of certain acts as continuing in nature, as also recognised in the stridhan context in Krishna Bhattacharjee, reinforces this.
This continuing-reach jurisprudence dovetails with the residence cases. Satish Chander Ahuja v. Sneha Ahuja (2021) expanded the understanding of the “shared household” — overruling the narrow view in S.R. Batra v. Taruna Batra — and confirmed that a daughter-in-law may claim residence rights in a household owned by her in-laws where she has lived in the domestic relationship. While that case concerns Section 17 and residence orders, it forms part of the same liberal, protective construction the courts bring to the entire Chapter IV, Section 18 included. The cumulative message of Bhanot, Juveria, Krishna Bhattacharjee, Prabha Tyagi and Satish Chander Ahuja is that the protective machinery of the Act, with the Section 18 protection order at its head, is to be read generously and is not lightly defeated by the formal status of the relationship.
Exam strategy: how to write Section 18 well
For judiciary and CLAT-PG answers, anchor your treatment of Section 18 on four pillars. First, reproduce the opening ingredients precisely — opportunity of being heard to both parties, prima facie satisfaction, and the disjunctive “has taken place or is likely to take place.” Examiners reward candidates who notice that the standard is prima facie, not proof beyond reasonable doubt, and that the section is preventive. Second, know the seven clauses (a) to (g) by their content, and remember that all are prohibitory; do not smuggle residence or maintenance directions into Section 18.
Third, marry each doctrinal point to authority: Hiral P. Harsora for who may be a respondent, V.D. Bhanot for pre-Act conduct, Krishna Bhattacharjee for stridhan as a continuing wrong, Kunapareddy for amendment, Juveria Abdul Majid Patni for post-divorce maintainability, and Prabha Tyagi and Satish Chander Ahuja for the liberal protective construction. Fourth, always close the loop with enforcement: a protection order's force comes from Section 31 read with Section 32, making breach a cognizable, non-bailable offence. A candidate who links Section 18 to Section 23 (interim/ex parte), Section 25 (duration and discharge) and Section 31 (breach) demonstrates command of the whole machinery rather than an isolated provision.
Frequently asked questions
What standard of proof must the Magistrate be satisfied of before passing a protection order under Section 18?
Only prima facie satisfaction. The Magistrate must, after hearing both the aggrieved person and the respondent, be prima facie satisfied that domestic violence has taken place or is likely to take place. This is a deliberately low threshold — not proof beyond reasonable doubt — reflecting the beneficial and preventive purpose of the Act.
Can a protection order be passed before the respondent is heard?
A final protection order under Section 18 requires that both parties be given an opportunity of being heard. However, under Section 23(2) the Magistrate may grant an interim or ex parte order, including under Section 18, on the basis of an affidavit where it is prima facie disclosed that the respondent is committing, has committed or is likely to commit domestic violence. The ex parte dimension was considered in Shalu Ojha v. Prashant Ojha.
Who can be made a respondent in a protection order after the Harsora case?
In Hiral P. Harsora v. Kusum Narottamdas Harsora (2016) the Supreme Court struck down the words “adult male” in the Section 2(q) definition of “respondent” as violative of Article 14. As a result, a protection order under Section 18 can now be passed against female relatives and persons who are not adult males, not merely against an adult male respondent.
How long does a protection order remain in force?
Under Section 25(1), a protection order made under Section 18 remains in force until the aggrieved person applies for its discharge; it does not lapse with time. Under Section 25(2), either party may apply for its alteration, modification or revocation on a change of circumstances, with the Magistrate recording reasons in writing.
What happens if the respondent breaches a protection order?
Under Section 31, breach of a protection order or an interim protection order is an offence punishable with imprisonment up to one year, or fine up to twenty thousand rupees, or both. By virtue of Section 32, this offence is cognizable and non-bailable, and under Section 31(3) the Magistrate may also frame charges under Section 498A of the Penal Code or the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, if the facts disclose them.
Can a divorced woman still obtain relief connected to domestic violence?
Yes. In Juveria Abdul Majid Patni v. Atif Iqbal Mansoori (2014) the Supreme Court held that once an act of domestic violence is committed, a subsequent divorce does not absolve the respondent of liability or deny the aggrieved person the benefits of the Act. Similarly, Krishna Bhattacharjee v. Sarathi Choudhury (2016) held that retention of stridhan is a continuing wrong unaffected by judicial separation or limitation.