1. All these Criminal Petitions are filed under Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C.) seeking to quash the proceedings in respect of Domestic Violence Cases (DVCs.).

2. This Court entertained a doubt regarding maintainability of these quash petitions in view of judgment of this Court in the case of Velisetti Chandra Rekha and another v. The State of A.P. and another (2010 (2) ALD (Crl.) 689 (AP) and hence, heard learned counsel for petitioners and learned Public Prosecutor.

3. In the above decision, in a similar petition filed to quash the proceedings in DV case, a learned single Judge of this High Court has observed thus:

“Para 2: The petitioners cannot be punished for any offence under the Act. Only on violating the Protection Orders passed under Section 18 of the Act and Residence Orders under Section 19 of the Act, the Magistrate can proceed under Section 31 of the Act and can summon the violators to show cause why penalty for breach of the protection should not be imposed on them. Further as per Section 32 of the Act, the offence under Sub-section (1) of Section 31 of the Act shall be a cognizable and non-bailable one. Before passing any orders, summons have to be served on the respondents and they can either appear before the court or can be represented by an Advocate for passing appropriate orders under Section 18 or 19 of the Act. In view of the same, issuing of summons and non-bailable warrants for their presence, is not at all warranted, at the stage of passing of the protection orders or residence orders by the concerned Magistrate. On issuing such Non-bailable warrants on the presumption that they have committed the offence under the Act, the petitioners approached this Court for quashment of the proceedings. Para 3: Since the resident orders can be passed against all the respondents, preventing them from interfering with the possession of the aggrieved person in the Domestic Violence Case, mere impleadment of the petitioners in the Domestic Violence Case, does not give raise to a criminal offence to quash the proceedings at the initial stage.”(Emphasis supplied)

4. So, precisely the observation of the learned Judge is that orders passed under Sections 18 to 22 of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (for short “D.V. Act”) are in the nature of civil reliefs and none of the orders treat the concerned respondent as an offender and it is only the violation of the order passed under Sections 18 and 19 is treated as an offence under Sections 31 and 32 of DV Act and therefore, mere impleadment of a person as a party respondent in a Domestic Violence Case, does not give rise to a criminal offence to quash the proceedings at the initial stage.

5. In the light of above observations, this Court preferred a preliminary hearing on the maintainability of the above quash petitions.

6. Learned counsel for petitioners argued that though reliefs under Sections 18 to 22 of DV Act are in the nature of civil reliefs but several provisions under DV Act particularly Sections 2(i), 12, 28 etc. would reveal that the reliefs under aforesaid sections shall be dealt with by the Judicial Magistrate of First Class and the adjudication of the proceedings under Sections 12, 18 to 23 and 31 is governed by the provisions of Cr.P.C. and the concerned Magistrate Courts are treating the proceedings under DV Act as criminal case and if the parties failed to turn up for any reason, issuing NBWs. against them which causes any amount of hardship to the parties most of whom are unnecessarily roped in cases without their connivance and complicity in the case and further, they are not responsible and answerable to the reliefs sought for by the petitioner. In this legal and factual scenario, they argued, continuation of the proceedings against the petitioners will be abuse of process of the Court only which can be obviated by this Court under its inherent powers conferred by Section 482 Cr.P.C. They submitted that the observat