The High Court upheld the summoning orders issued by the Trial Court in a case filed under the DV Act. The Court found that the allegations made by the respondents were sufficient for summoning the petitioners and that the disputed questions of fact should be decided during the trial.

JUDGMENT

Swarana Kanta Sharma, J.

1. The present petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (`Cr.P.C') has been filed on behalf of petitioners challenging order dated 02.05.2019, 30.07.2019 and 17.08.2020 passed by the learned Metropolitan Magistrate (Mahila Court), South District, Saket Courts, New Delhi (`Trial Court') vide which petitioner no. 1 and 2 have been summoned by the learned Trial Court in CC No. 10069/2019 filed under Section 12 of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (`DV Act').

2. In the present case, respondent no. 1 and 2 herein (complainant no. 1 and 2 respectively before the learned Trial Court) had filed a complaint before the learned Trial Court under Section 12 read with Section 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 of DV Act against six respondents namely (i) Rajiv Batra i.e. husband, (ii) Sanjiv Batra i.e. brother-in- law, (iii) B.S. Batra i.e. father-in-law, (iv) Kalpana Batra i.e. sister-in- law, (v) Manish Grover i.e. sister-in-law, and (vi) Poonam Gupta i.e. sister-in-law.

3. The learned Trial Court vide order dated 02.05.2019, after hearing arguments on summoning, had observed that there were prima facie allegations of violence against the husband of respondent no. 1 herein and against petitioner no. 1 i.e. brother-in-law of respondent no. 1 and that there was prima facie sharing of domestic relationship in a shared household. Thereafter, upon receipt of Domestic Incident Report, summons were issued to father-in-law of respondent no. 1 and to petitioner no. 2 herein i.e. sister-in-law of respondent no. 1 and wife of petitioner no. 1. By way of order dated 17.08.2020, the petitioner no. 1 was directed to file his income affidavit, since the case of respondent no. 1 was that petitioner no. 1 is the biological father of her child i.e. respondent no. 2 and was thus liable to pay her maintenance.

4. Aggrieved by these orders, the present petition had been preferred by the petitioners challenging their summoning in the present case. This Court, vide order dated 11.09.2020 had stayed the operation of summoning orders against the petitioners herein.

5. The case set out in the present petition, and argued by the learned counsel for the petitioners, is that respondent no. 1 and 2 had filed a false complaint under DV Act after a gap of 13 years of alleged offence. It is stated that respondent no.1 had got married in the year 2004 with the elder brother of petitioner no. 1 who is respondent no.1 before the learned Trial Court and after marriage, the respondent no.1 had conceived during the period of March, 2005 to October, 2005. It is stated that petitioner no.1 is brother-in-law/devar and petitioner no. 2 is sister-in-law/devrani of respondent no. 1, who had got married in the year 2005 and had shifted to the first floor of the property where they had facility of a separate kitchen and they had no concern with any of the family disputes between the complainant and her husband or father-in-law. It is stated that several disputes had arisen between respondent no. 1 and her husband i.e. elder brother of petitioner no. 1 during the year 2005-2007 and respondent no. 1 used to beat her husband and father-in-law, and several police complaints had been lodged in this regard. In this regard, it is stated that in the month of April-May, 2005, a Kalandra under Section 107/151 of Cr.P.C. had been registered between the family members and on 23.05.2005, respondent no. 1 had given a statement to the police that she will take divorce from elder brother of petitioner no. 1 and she had also mentioned that she was 19 years of age. It is further stated that in the year 2007, respondent no. 1 had left the matrimonial home of the elder brother of petitioner no. 1, however, after a gap of almost 12 years, she had got the FIR bearing no. 266/2018 registered under Sections 376/506 of IPC at Police Station Mayapuri on 23.11.2018 against petitioner no.1 and both the elder brother i.e. her husband and fa