Supreme Court – Daily Orders
We The Women Of India vs Union Of India on 20 May, 2025
ITEM NO.20 COURT NO.6 SECTION PIL-W
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
WRIT PETITION(S)(CIVIL) NO(S). 1156/2021
WE THE WOMEN OF INDIA Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
UNION OF INDIA & ORS. Respondent(s)
Date : 20-05-2025 This petition was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE B.V. NAGARATHNA
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SATISH CHANDRA SHARMA
For Petitioner(s) Ms. Shobha Gupta, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Anand Padmanabhan, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Aditya Ranjan, AOR
Ms. Siny Sara Varghese, Adv.
Ms. Yogamaya MG, Adv.
Ms. Komal, Adv.
For Respondent(s) Ms. Aishwarya Bhati, ASG
Ms. Archana Pathak Dave, A.S.G.
Ms. Chitrangda Rashtravara, Adv.
Ms. Suhashini Sen, Adv.
Ms. Rekha Pandey, Adv.
Ms. Swati Ghildiyal, Adv.
Mr. Sudarshan Lamba, AOR
Ms. Manisha Chava, Adv.
Mr. Vaibhav Dwivedi, Adv.
Ms. Shagun Thakur, Adv.
Ms. Aishwarya Bhati, A.S.G.
Ms. Ruchi Kohli, Adv.
Ms. Swarupama Chaturvedi, Adv.
Ms. Chinmayee Chandra, Adv.
Advitiya Awasthi, Adv.
Mr. Ishaan Sharma, Adv.
Dr. N. Visakamurthy, AOR
Mr. Sahil Bhalaik, AOR
Mr. Tushar Giri, Adv.
Mr. Siddharth Anil Khanna, Adv.
Signature Not Verified
Mr. Ritik Arora, Adv.
Digitally signed by
RADHA SHARMA
Date: 2025.06.03
Mr. Shivam Mishra, Adv.
10:28:05 IST
Reason: Mr. Gowtham Polanki, Adv.
Mr. Murshlin Ansari, Adv.
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Ms. Diksha Rai, AOR
Mr. Piyush Vyas, Adv.
Ms. Purvat Wali, Adv.
Mr. Manish Kumar, AOR
Mr. Divyansh Mishra, Adv.
Ms. Ankita Sharma, AOR
Mr. Arjun D Singh, Adv.
Mrs. Shirin Khajuria, Sr. Adv.
Ms. Bhavana Duhoon, AOR
Ms. Swati Tiwari, Adv.
Ms. Swati Ghildiyal, AOR
Ms. Deepanwita Priyanka, Adv.
Ms. Abhipsa Mohanty, Adv.
Mr. Lokesh Sinhal, Sr. A.A.G.
Mr. Akshay Amritanshu, AOR
Mr. Nikunj Gupta, Adv.
Ms. Drishti Rawal, Adv.
Ms. Pragya Upadhyay, Adv.
Ms. Drishti Saraf, Adv.
Ms. Aakanksha, Adv.
Ms. Ishika Gupta, Adv.
Mr. Sarthak Arya, Adv.
Mr. V. N. Raghupathy, AOR
Mr. Raghavendra M. Kulkarni, Adv.
Mr. Nishe Rajen Shonker, AOR
Mrs. Anu K Joy, Adv.
Mr. Alim Anvar, Adv.
Mr. Santhosh K, Adv.
Mr. Bharat Bagla, Adv.
Mr. Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Adv.
Mr. Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, AOR
Mr. Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, AOR
Mr. Karun Sharma, Adv.
Ms. Anupama Ngangom, Adv.
Ms. Rajkumari Divyasana, Adv.
Mr. Avijit Mani Tripathi, AOR
Mr. Anando Mukherjee, AOR
Mr. Prasenjeet Mohapatra, AOR
Mr. Rajat Rathee, Adv.
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Ms. Nupur Kumar, AOR
Mr. Sandeep Kumar Jha, AOR
Mr. Shiv Mangal Sharma, A.A.G.
Ms. Nidhi Jaswal, Adv.
Mr. Sameer Abhyankar, AOR
Ms. Yashika Sharma, Adv.
Mr. Aryan Srivastava, Adv.
Ms. G. Indira, AOR
Mr. P Gandepan, Adv.
Ms. Amrita, Adv.
Ms. Anjali, Adv.
Ms. Deepa Rathore, Adv.
Mr. Shuvodeep Roy, AOR
Mr. Deepayan Dutta, Adv.
Mr. Saurabh Tripathi, Adv.
Mr. Manan Verma, AOR
Ms. Ishita Bist, Adv.
Mr. Sumit Kumar, Adv.
Mr. Shubham Arora, Adv.
Mr. Ajay Kumar Misra, Advocate General
Mr. Tanmaya Agarwal, AOR
Mr. Wrick Chatterjee, Adv.
Mrs. Aditi Agarwal, Adv.
Mr. Kunal Mimani, AOR
Mr. Tanish Arora, Adv.
Mr. Vikramjit Banerjee, A.S.G.
Mr. Mukesh Kumar Maroria, AOR
Mrs. Suhasini Sen, Adv.
Mrs. Rekha Pandey, Adv.
Mrs. Swati Ghildiyal, Adv.
Mr. Tanmay Mehta, Adv.
Mr. Annirudh Sharma Ii, Adv.
Mr. K. M. Nataraj, A.S.G.
Mr. Mukesh Kumar Verma, Adv.
Mr. Mrinal Elkar Mazumdar, Adv.
Mr. Kanu Agrawal, Adv.
Mr. Varun Chugh, Adv.
Mr. Tadimalla Bhaskar Gowtham, Adv.
Mr. Vatsal Joshi, Adv.
Mr. Shashwat Parihar, Adv.
Mr. Harish Pandey, Adv.
Ms. Priyadarshni Priya, Adv.
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Mr. Rajesh Singh Chauhan, Adv.
Mr. Piyush Beriwal, Adv.
Mr. Mukul Singh, Adv.
Mr. Vinayak Sharma, Adv.
Mr. Krishna Kant Dubey, Adv.
Mr. Shreekant Neelappa Terdal, AOR
Mr. Aravindh S., AOR
Ms. Jyoti P, Adv.
Mr. Zoheb Hossain, AOR
Mr. Satya Mitra, AOR
Ms. Disha Singh, AOR
Ms. Eliza Barr, Adv.
Mr. Abhimanyu Tewari, AOR
Ms. Eliza Bar, Adv.
Mr. Andita Mukerjee, Adv.
Ms. Swati Vishan, Adv.
Ms. Manisha Chawla, Adv.
Ms. Charanjeet Sidhu, Adv.
Ms. Yamini Sharma, Adv.
Ms. Supriya, Adv.
Mrs. Ananda, AOR
Mr. Divyanshu Kumar Srivastava, AOR
Mr. Saurabh Pandey, Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
Learned counsel for the State of Arunachal Pradesh
submitted that the said State was impleaded subsequent to
the order imposing costs of Rs.5,000/-. Hence, an
application seeking waiver of the costs is being filed
during the course of the day.
Taking note of the said submission, the order for
payment of costs of Rs.5000/- is set-aside with regard to
the State of Arunachal Pradesh.
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We have heard learned senior counsel for the
petitioner and learned ASG for Union of India and learned
counsel for National Legal Services Authority (for short
“NALSA”) and all learned standing counsel for the
respective States and Union Territories who are present.
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act,
2005 enacted two decades ago is an Act to provide for more
effective protection of the rights of women guaranteed
under the Constitution of India to those who are victims of
violence of any kind occurring within the family and for
matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. This Act
has been passed in furtherance of Article 15(3) of the
Constitution of India which provides inter alia for
protection of women and children.
Learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner
submitted that this Court has entertained this Writ
Petition in the year 2021 and has passed several directions
from time to time. However, there is need to focus on
certain aspects of the Act.
In this regard she has highlighted that there is need
for appointment of protection officers under Section 8 of
the Act. Section 8 of the Act reads as under:
“8. Appointment of Protection Officers.—
(1) The State Government shall, by notification,
appoint such number of Protection Officers in each
district as it may consider necessary and shall
also notify the area or areas within which a
Protection Officer shall exercise the powers and5
perform the duties conferred on him by or under
this Act.
2) The Protection Officers shall as far as possible
be women and shall possess such qualifications and
experience as may be prescribed.
3) The terms and conditions of service of the
Protection Officer and the other officers
subordinate to him shall be such as may be
prescribed.”Section 9 delineates the duties and functions of
Protection Officers. She, therefore, submitted that
dedicated Protection Officers have to be appointed by the
States/Union Territories for rendering effective services
to women who are victims of domestic violence. However,
till such time such dedicated officers are appointed, there
is an absolute necessity for designating certain officers
at the Taluka and District level for rendering services as
Protection Officers to victims of domestic violence. She
submitted that the casting of responsibilities on officers
who are involved in ICDS work or who are Anganwadi workers
would not be of much assistance. Therefore, she sought a
direction that the States and Union Territories may
designate certain officers who are working in the
Department of Women and Child at Districts and Taluka
levels to be also designated as Protection Officers under
Section 8 of the Act.
Learned senior counsel next submitted that Section 10
speaks of service providers. For ease of reference Section
10 is extracted as under:
“10. Service providers.—
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(1) Subject to such rules as may be made in this
behalf, any voluntary association registered under
the Societies Registration Act, 1860 (21 of 1860)
or a company registered under the Companies Act,
1956 (1 of 1956) or any other law for the time
being in force with the objective of protecting the
rights and interests of women by any lawful means
including providing of legal aid, medical,
financial or other assistance shall register itself
with the State Government as a service provider for
the purposes of this Act.
(2) A service provider registered under sub-section
(1) shall have the power to—
(a) 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;
(b) get the aggrieved person medically examined
and forward a copy of the medical repot to the
Protection Officer and the police station
within the local limits of which the domestic
violence took place;
(c) ensure that the aggrieved person is
provided shelter in a shelter home, if she so
requires and forward a report of the lodging of
the aggrieved person in the shelter home to the
police station within the local limits of which
the domestic violence took place.
(3) No suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding
shall lie against any service provider or any
member of the service provider who is, or who is
deemed to be, acting or purporting to act under
this Act, for anything which is in good faith done
or intended to be done in the exercise of powers or
discharge of functions under this Act towards the
prevention of the commission of domestic violence.”It was the submission of learned senior counsel that
steps have to be taken by the States and the Union
Territories for empaneling the concerned persons and
organizations as Service Providers for the effective
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implementation of the Act. Therefore, a direction may beissued to the States and Union Territories to take steps in
that regard where there is no empaneling of such Service
Providers or the empaneled Service Providers are inadequate
for implementing the provisions of the Act.
It was next submitted that shelter homes have to be
provided under Section 6 of the act. The same reads as
under:
“6. Duties of shelter homes.—If an aggrieved person
or on her behalf a Protection Officer or a service
provider requests the person in charge of a shelter
home to provide shelter to her, such person in
charge of the shelter home shall provide shelter to
the aggrieved person in the shelter home.”That if an aggrieved person requests protection in a
shelter home then she must get assistance through a shelter
home. Therefore, there must be designation of certain homes
as shelter homes for the purpose of implementation of
Section 6 of the Act.
Similarly, Section 7 of the Act provides for duties
of medical facilities. The medical facilities must be
rendered as and when necessitated to an aggrieved woman
including having access to a primary health centre or any
other local medical health centre for medical treatment.
Therefore, learned senior counsel submitted that
appropriate directions may be issued to the respondent-
States and Union Territories.
Further, our attention was also drawn to Section 11
of the Act which deals with duties of the Government which,
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inter alia, requires the State Governments and UnionTerritories to give adequate publicity to the provisions of
the Act so that a distressed woman in a domestic
relationship is aware of the rights and remedies under the
said Act. For immediate reference Section 11 of the Act is
extracted as under:
“11. Duties of Government.— The Central Government
and every State Government, shall take all measures
to ensure that—
(a) the provisions of this Act are given wide
publicity through public media including the
television, radio and the print media at regular
intervals;
(b) the Central Government and State Government
officers including the police officers and the
members of the judicial services are given periodic
sensitization and awareness training on the issues
addressed by this Act;
(c) effective co-ordination between the services
provided by concerned Ministries and Departments
dealing with law, home affairs including law and
order, health and human resources to address issues
of domestic violence is established and periodical
review of the same is conducted;
(d) protocols for the various Ministries concerned
with the delivery of services to women under this
Act including the courts are prepared and put in
place.”It was also brought to our notice that Section 9(1)
(d) states that an aggrieved woman shall be provided legal
aid under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 free of
costs.
Section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act,
1987, inter alia, states that a woman is entitled to legal
services. Therefore, in case of necessity, women must have
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access to legal aid and therefore a direction may be issued
to NALSA for communicating to the Members Secretaries of
the State Legal Services Authorities who in turn would
communicate to the District and Taluk level Member
Secretaries, the need to provide legal aid to distressed
women who are aggrieved by domestic violence to seek
remedies under the provisions of the Act.
By way of response, learned counsel standing counsel
for the respondent-States and Union Territories submitted
that if directions are issued by this Court they would
convey the same to the Chief Secretaries and the Department
of the Women and Children so that those directions would be
complied with if some time is granted by this Court.
Learned counsel appearing for NALSA also submitted
that if a direction is issued by this Court, the same would
be complied with so as to provide free legal aid to any
aggrieved women who is distressed and is need of remedies
under the provisions of the Act.
In view of the aforesaid discussion, we issue the
following directions:
1. We direct the States and Union
Territories to identify officers in the
Department of Women and Child working
at the level of the District and Taluka
levels as Protection Officers and
designate them as such. It is needless
to observe that on such designation the
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Protection Officers shall dischargetheir duties in terms of Section 9 of
the Act.
2. 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. 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
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State Government shall take all measures in
delineated under the said provisions.
4. We also note 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.
5. We have noted that Section 9(d) of the Act read
with Section 12 of the Legal Services Authority
Act, 1987 entities 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. The Member Secretaries at the States, Districts
and Talukas level may 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
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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.
7. The steps shall also be taken by the concerned
departments to empanel the service providers as
per Section 10 of the Act. Shelter homes for
Nari Niketan, one stop centres or any other
homes for women must be accessible to the
victims/aggrieved women 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 aforesaid directions have been issued as initial
steps so as to ensure ultimate implementation of Act in all
respect.
(RADHA SHARMA) (DIVYA BABBAR)
ASTT. REGISTRAR-cum-PS COURT MASTER (NSH)
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