Supreme Court's 7 Directions For Domestic Violence Act Implementation

The Supreme Court has not only asked authorities to appoint protection officers to assist victims of domestic violence across the country within six weeks, but also issued several detailed directions to Centre, States and Union Territories to ensure provisions of the Domestic Violence Act are implemented.

In a significant order, the Supreme Court said that such directions have been issued as initial steps to ensure the Act's implementation in all respects.

The directions came after the top court noted that despite the Act being in force for over two decades, its implementation remains uneven across India.

On May 20, the bench headed by Justices BV Nagarathana and Satish Chandra Sharma had passed the order emphasising the need to appoint protection officers. A detailed order copy released today on Supreme Court website includes several key directions to states and Centre.

The seven key directions from Supreme Court are:

1. Identify And Appoint Protection Officers

"We direct the States and Union Territories to identify officers in the Department of Women and Child development working at the District and Taluka levels as Protection Officers and designate them as such. It is needless to observe that on such designation, the Protection Officers shall discharge their duties in terms of Section 9 of the Act."

2. Appointment Of Protection Officers Within Six Weeks

"We direct the Chief Secretaries of States/Union Territories as well as the Secretaries, Department of Women and Child of the respective States and Union Territories to coordinate in this regard and ensure that the officers are designated as Protection Officers under the provisions of the Act. Such exercise shall be carried out within a period of six weeks from today wherever designation of the officers as protection officer has not taken place."

3. Awareness About Provisions For Victims Of Domestic Violence

The top court directed the Centre and States to especially implement provisions of Section 11 of the Domestic Violence Act. 

Along with ensuring publicity at regular intervals about the provisions of the DV Act, Section 11 mandates that the central and state government officers, including the police officers and the members of the judicial services, are given periodic sensitisation and awareness training on the issues addressed by this Act.

The said section also mandates effective co-ordination between the services provided by concerned Ministries and Departments dealing with law and home affairs, including law and order, health and human resources, to address issues of domestic violence and a periodical review of the same is carried out. 

"The respondent-States and Union Territories shall take steps to discharge their duties under Section 11 of the Act by giving wide publicity through public media about the provisions of the Act for having an effective coordination between the services provided by various Ministries and Departments for the implementation of the Act and to ensure that the protocols of the various ministries concerned with the delivery of services to women under the Act are took in place. While we may issue further directions in this regard, we expect that having regard to the explicit provisions of Section 11, the State Government shall take all measures in delineated under the said provisions." Supreme Court order read. 

4. Ensure Implementation Of Section 11 Of Domestic Violence Act

The Supreme Court noted that Section 11 also imposes duty on the Central Government "and, therefore, we direct that adequate and sufficient steps may be taken by the Union of India for implementation of Section 11 of the Act which is extracted above".

Section 11 mandates that protocols for various Ministries concerned with the delivery of services to women under this Act, including for the courts, are prepared and put in place.

5. Free Legal Aid To Victims of Domestic Violence

"We have noted that Section 9(d) of the Act read with Section 12 of the Legal Services Authority Act, 1987 entitles a woman and particularly a distressed women who are aggrieved to legal aid. In view of this mandate, we direct the Member Secretary of NALSA to communicate to the Member Secretaries of the States/Union Territories, Legal Services Authorities, to in turn communicate to the Member Secretaries at the District level as well as the Taluka level to give wide publicity to the fact that an aggrieved women under the provisions of the Act is entitled to free legal aid and advise."

6. Role Of Member Secretaries At State, District Levels

The Supreme Court said that the Member Secretaries at the States, Districts and Talukas level may also give adequate publicity to this aspect in the context of the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

"It goes without saying that should any distressed women approach the Member Secretary or any other officer of the Legal Services Authority for seeking legal aid and advice, the same would be provided expeditiously since the Act envisages that every woman is entitled to free legal aid," the order read.

7. Identify, Notify And Make Shelter Homes More Accessible To Victims Within 10 Weeks

The top court said that steps shall also be taken by the concerned departments to empanel the service providers as per Section 10 of the Act.

Service providers, like NGOs or Societies recognised under Section 10, record the domestic incident report in the prescribed form if the aggrieved person so desires and forward a copy thereof to the Magistrate and the Protection Officer having jurisdiction in the area where the domestic violence took place.

They can also get the aggrieved person medically examined and forward a copy of the medical report to the Protection Officer and the police station within the local limits of which the domestic violence took place. 

Shelter homes or Nari Niketan, one stop centres or any other homes for women must be accessible to the victims of domestic violence and therefore, steps have to be taken to ensure that such homes are made available to the distressed women. 

"The respondent-State and Union Territories are directed to identify and notify shelter homes for this purpose at the District and Taluka levels within a period of ten weeks from today."

The case came up in court after court was apprised that several states were assigning the responsibilities under the DV Act to officials already handling the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), which includes child welfare and protection duties. 

Senior advocate Shobha Gupta, representing the NGO We the Women, contended in court that these officers are overburdened and unable to manage the workload, leaving vulnerable women and children unsupported. Gupta argued that Designating ICDS or Anganwadi workers as Protection Officers will not be enough.