What happens when the victim is a minor boy, or an elderly father-in-law?
I still remember the first time a client sat across my desk and said, "But it's happening inside the house — surely that makes it domestic violence?" He wasn't wrong to ask. He was an elderly man, shaken, describing how his daughter-in-law had shoved him during an argument and he'd lost his footing. In his mind, the four walls of the home were enough to define the wrong. The law, unfortunately, asks a narrower question first: who is asking for protection, not just where the harm happened.
That conversation has stayed with me because it captures something I see often in practice — people assume the Domestic Violence Act is a blanket law for anything that goes wrong within a family. It isn't. And realizing that, sometimes mid-crisis, can feel like the ground shifting under someone who was already unsteady.
So let me walk through this the way I wish someone had walked my client through it that day.
A House With Two Kinds of Suffering
Picture a home where an elderly father-in-law tries, gently, to defuse an argument between his son and daughter-in-law. He's pushed aside. He falls. No one calls it abuse — it's just "a bad evening."
Weeks later, it's the fourteen-year-old grandson who becomes the target. Slapped for speaking up. Denied meals as punishment. Told, repeatedly, that he doesn't belong.
A neighbour, watching all this, asks the obvious question: why don't they just file a DV case?
It's a fair question. It's also, legally, the wrong one.
The Misconception I Keep Running Into
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 was built for a specific purpose — protecting women in domestic relationships. Under Section 2(a), an "aggrieved person" is defined as a woman. That's the boundary of the Act, not a gap in it.
So when a father-in-law or a minor son is the one suffering, the DV Act simply isn't the door that opens. That doesn't mean the house has no other doors.
Can the Father-in-Law File a DV Case?
No. And he can't file under Section 498A either (now folded into the corresponding provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023) — that provision exists to protect a wife from cruelty by her husband or his relatives, not the reverse.
What he can do, depending on the facts, is:
- Lodge an FIR for assault, criminal intimidation, wrongful restraint, or mischief under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023
- Pursue civil remedies — injunctions, or recovery of possession of his own property
- If he qualifies as a senior citizen, invoke the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, which can grant relief specifically around occupation of his self-acquired property
The remedy changes shape. The protection doesn't disappear.
What About the Minor Boy?
Same story, different statute. A child being beaten, humiliated, or starved as punishment cannot file a DV case or a 498A complaint. But the law hasn't abandoned him — it protects him through a different framework entirely:
- Criminal offences registrable under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita
- Intervention by the Child Welfare Committee, where the child needs care and protection
- The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO), if the abuse is sexual in nature
It's not that the child's pain matters less in the eyes of the law. It's that the law built a different, and in some ways more specialised, machinery for children.
Does the Abuser's Gender Change Anything?
No — and this is worth sitting with. Criminal liability turns on the act, not the identity of who committed it. A daughter-in-law assaulting her father-in-law, an elder sibling abusing a younger one, a mother mistreating a child — all of it can attract criminal provisions regardless of gender.
But Didn't the Supreme Court Widen the DV Act?
It did, in part. In Hiral P. Harsora v. Kusum Narottamdas Harsora (2016), the Supreme Court struck down the words "adult male" from the definition of "respondent" — meaning DV proceedings can now be initiated against female respondents too.
But this only widened who can be accused. It didn't touch who can complain. The aggrieved person under the Act must still be a woman. One door got wider; the other stayed exactly where it was.
Different Victims, Different Remedies
| Victim | Primary Remedy |
|---|---|
| Wife subjected to cruelty | DV Act, criminal law, and matrimonial remedies where applicable |
| Father-in-law assaulted by family | Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, civil remedies, Senior Citizens Act |
| Minor boy subjected to abuse | Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Child Welfare Committee, Juvenile Justice framework, POCSO (if sexual abuse is involved) |
| Senior citizen facing harassment | Senior Citizens Act and criminal law |
What I've Learned From Cases Like This
The mistake isn't emotional — it's structural. People feel the wrong clearly; what they get wrong is which legal shelf to reach for. And in litigation, that distinction isn't academic. Filing under the wrong statute doesn't just delay justice — it can get a case dismissed before the facts are even heard.
"Isn't this domestic violence?" my clients ask. Yes — but the law asks you to name it precisely before it can help you.
The DV Act protects women. Criminal law protects everyone. The Senior Citizens Act protects elderly parents. POCSO protects children. The Juvenile Justice framework protects children in need of care.
Every victim deserves protection. The law simply insists on knowing which one of its many arms you need — and part of our job, as advocates, is making sure no one loses their case simply because they knocked on the wrong door.
Let’s wrap up this legal insight here. Stay tuned for the next breakdown, where another complex aspect of property law in India will be simplified with clarity and precision.
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— Anpama Singh
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Written by: Anpama Singh | Legal Blogger
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