The main legal point established in the judgment is that not all live-in relationships qualify as a 'relationship in the nature of marriage' under the Domestic Violence Act, and the parties must fulfill specific requirements to be considered in a 'domestic relationship'.

1. On the petition (CC No. 1544/3/2013) presented by the complainant under Section 12 of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (for short, the Domestic Violence Act), proceedings have been initiated against the petitioner in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate with prayer for various reliefs in the nature of protection order (under Section 18), residence order (under Section 19), monetary reliefs (under Section 20), custody order (under Section 21) and compensation (under Section 22).

2. The petitioner had questioned the maintainability of the said proceedings by pointing out that it is the admitted case of the second respondent that they are not married to each other, the case having been founded on allegations of “live-in relationship”, his submission being that such relationship was not “in the nature of marriage”, he to the knowledge of the second respondent being married to another woman (named Anjali) at the relevant point of time. The Metropolitan Magistrate, by her order dated 17.11.2015, rejected the said contention to put an end to the proceedings observing that the submission raised mixed questions of law and fact. The petitioner thereafter moved the court of Sessions by criminal appeal (CA no. 223/2015) which was dismissed by order dated 23.11.2016.

3. He has come up to this Court invoking the inherent power and jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C.) and Article 227 of the Constitution of India, to pray that the aforesaid orders of the courts below be set aside and the proceedings under the Domestic Violence Act taken out by the respondent be quashed.

4. The petition under the Domestic Violence Act was presented in February, 2013 by the second respondent. A little prior to that she had lodged a complaint with the local police in District Gurgaon, Haryana, no action having been taken thereupon. She approached the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM), Gurgaon, which court, after pre-summoning inquiry, had issued process against the petitioner for offences under Sections 376/403/417 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC). The matter arising out of the said proceedings eventually came up as sessions case no. 66/2014 before the Additional Sessions Judge, Gurgaon, the gravamen of charges laid against the petitioner therein being that he had subjected the second respondent to sexual intercourse on the false promise of marriage and had thereby not only raped but cheated her. It is not disputed that the said sessions trial ended in judgment dated 12.07.2016 whereby the petitioner was acquitted with findings to the effect that the sexual relationship between the parties in a house in Gurgaon where they had lived together was consensual.

5. The case presented before the Metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi, is founded primarily and essentially on the same set of facts as were the subject matter of the sessions case which ended with the judgment of acquittal on 23.11.2016. To put it simply, the second respondent has averred that both she and the petitioner, with failed first marriages, had come together and became physically and emotionally involved, having started living together in a house in Gurgaon since 24.04.2010. It is her admitted case that she was aware that the petitioner had a child (a daughter) from his first marriage, narrating their initial interaction since they having come to be acquainted with each other since 2006, upon being introduced by common friends in Mumbai.

6. She would claim that the petitioner had told her in December, 2008 that his wife had sent him a notice for divorce. She also alleged that in the first week of April, 2010, the petitioner had informed her that he had finally separated from his wife permanently through divorce by mutual consent in March, 2010. The second respondent has narrated that the parties were living together and moving around in manner “akin to married life”, even going out to various stations and staying t