2 weeks Ago
Bengaluru: High court judge Justice Siddappa Sunil Dutt Yadav Saturday raised concerns about the prevalence of domestic violence in India and the challenges in implementing protective legislation, citing alarming statistics from the National Family Health Survey of 2019 and 2021. Justice Yadav said: "About 29% of married Indian women between the ages of 18 and 49 have experienced domestic and sexual violence. While 3.
1% of pregnant women aged between 18 to 49 suffered physical violence during their pregnancy." Speaking at the launch of the ‘Legal Handbook on Domestic Violence Laws ' by Aweksha on Saturday, Justice Yadav, stressed these figures represent only reported cases. "That's only the number of cases reported by women, and there are many instances that do not come out in the open either to police or other authorities simply because of the nature of the issue and consequences of trying to assert rights," he added.
The judge identified several issues hampering effective implementation of domestic violence legislation, including inadequate training of stakeholders. He noted that a significant bottleneck to implementing any statute is the "lack of training of various stakeholders, either the police officers, judges, court staff, and others who are part of the system in the functioning and implementation of this act." Justice Yadav advocated for comprehensive training programmes that consider the broader impact of domestic violence.
"Areas such as domestic violence need to be minutely interrogated, and a wide range of inputs, including the social and psychological impact of violence, need to be a part of the training module for judges, judicial officers, police, and protection officers," he said. He recommended that "refresher courses should include members of the higher judiciary and judges of the sessions court and not merely magistrates." Another critical concern highlighted was the enforcement of maintenance orders.
Justice Yadav said: "Once an order of maintenance is granted, it becomes an uphill task to actually receive the money order in fine. To this end, many execution petitions are pending for long durations, and various issues build up over that period." While praising the Karnataka Mediation Centre as "arguably one of the best mediation centres in the country," Justice Yadav said: "Mediation is not mere counselling.
Mediation is a tool whereby legal solutions are explored for legal disputes...
It's indeed a delicate balancing act of how we could resort to mediation when there's a violation of law.".
