Court dismisses appeal against non-issuance of summons to parents-in-law after considering absence of domestic relationship

New Delhi [India], January 3 : A Delhi court recently dismissed an appeal against the non-issuance of summons to parents-in-law, filed by the daughter-in-law, in a case related to domestic violence by saying that "in the absence of permanency of living with the parents-in-law in a household, there is no domestic relationship".
Additional Sessions Judge Neeraj Gaur of Rohini court, while dismissing the appeal said, "This court has found no illegality or infirmity in the impugned order. No case is made out to interfere with the same. Upholding the impugned order, the present appeal is hereby dismissed."
The court observed, "Due to the absence of the element of permanency of living with the
respondents in a household, there can be no domestic relationship between the appellant and the respondents. For want of such domestic relationship, the respondents herein were rightly declined to be summoned by the trial Court."
The appellant's daughter-in-law had challenged the order passed by the magistrate court in the domestic violence matter.
The Trial Court was of the view that the appellant did not share a common household with her in-laws and no domestic relationship was found to exist between them. With this opinion, the trial Court declined to summon the in-laws.
The sessions court noted that on a query raised by the magistrate court, the appellant had stated that she has been working in a school in Pitampura since 2014. She got married in August 2016 and was residing in a rental accommodation in Budh Vihar after the marriage. She
occasionally visited her in-laws who are residing in Himachal Pradesh.
Advocate Amit Kumar, counsel for the parents-in-law submitted that to show that there was a domestic relationship between the parties, there must be some amount of permanence in the living of the woman in a household.
The counsel also submitted that mere fleeting or casual living at different places shall not make a shared household.
The court while deciding the appeal said that it is evident from her statement that she was working on a contract basis as a teacher at MCD School. She stayed in Delhi till May 2017 in
rented accommodation. Her job in the same school resumed in July 2017. During the entire period of May 2016 to May 2017 when she was out of a job, she stayed in Delhi with her husband in rented accommodation.
"Meaning that only in June 2017, she could have stayed in Shimla. These occasional visits and short stays of the appellant at Shimla will not make the same as a shared household," the court said in the order of December 22.
The court also observed, "all the complaints relied by the appellant pertaining to the incidents of March-April, 2020 also do not suggest that there was an element of permanency in her stay at Shimla alongwith the respondents."