Section 17 DV Act Bars Eviction From Shared Household Without Due Process, Not Eviction Under Lawful Decree: Delhi High Court

The Court also held that a wife’s right to residence and maintenance flows from the marital bond and is primarily enforceable against her husband, not against her parents-in-law.

Update: 2026-08-25 04:30 GMT

Justice Neena Bansal Krishna, Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has held that Section 17 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 does not confer an absolute or indefeasible right to continue occupying a shared household, and only protects an aggrieved person from eviction or exclusion otherwise than by due process of law.

The Court was hearing a Regular First Appeal under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, challenging a decree passed by the Additional District Judge under Order XII Rule 6 CPC, whereby a suit for possession filed by the father-in-law against his daughter-in-law was decreed on admissions.

A Bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna observed: “S.17 read with S.19 (1)(f) DV Act does not give an absolute right, but states that the aggrieved person shall not be evicted or excluded from the shared household save in accordance with the procedure established by law. The embargo is thus not upon eviction, but upon eviction otherwise than by due process. Sub-section (2) of S.17 is a procedural safeguard against dispossession by high-handedness, and not a charter of indefeasible occupation; it neither confers title upon the aggrieved person nor immunises her from a lawfully obtained decree. Pertinently, the embargo operates against "the respondent", and its purpose is to ensure that the aggrieved person is put out only by recourse to law, and not otherwise. Where, as here, the owner has approached a Civil Court, pleaded his case, and obtained a decree upon the admissions of the Appellant herself, the procedure established by law stands satisfied in full measure.”

The Bench further observed: “The right of the Appellant to residence and to maintenance arises out of the marital bond and is primarily enforceable against her husband. Such right flows from the marriage and is enforceable against the husband, and not against the parents-in-law. Respondent No. 2 is the person from whom the Appellant's entitlement flows, and it is against him that the reliefs of residence and maintenance properly lie.”

Advocate Shivek Rai Kapoor appeared for the appellant; Advocate Ateev Mathur appeared for the respondents.

Background

The father-in-law, a senior citizen, filed a civil suit seeking possession, injunction and damages for use and occupation of the suit property. The daughter-in-law had been residing in the property after her marriage and claimed it to be her matrimonial home and shared household under Section 2(s) of the DV Act.

The appellant’s marriage with Respondent No. 2 had turned sour and the parties were involved in multiple litigations. She had also filed proceedings under the DV Act against her husband, father-in-law and other family members. In those proceedings, she was granted monthly maintenance payable by her husband, but no residence relief was granted qua the suit property.

In the civil suit, the father-in-law filed an application under Order XII Rule 6 CPC seeking a decree on admissions. He relied on the appellant’s affidavit of admission and denial of documents and written statement to contend that his ownership of the suit property stood admitted.

The Additional District Judge allowed the application and decreed the suit for possession. In appeal, the appellant contended that the decree was premature, that mutation entries did not confer title, that the admissions were not clear and unconditional, that a partition suit concerning the property was pending, and that the suit property was a shared household in which she had a right to reside till the subsistence of marriage.

During pendency of the appeal, the High Court made an interim arrangement requiring the husband to pay rent towards alternate accommodation. The amount earlier offered before the Trial Court was enhanced by the High Court to ₹35,000 per month, with directions for advance rent and continuing payment till disposal of the inter se matrimonial proceedings.

Court's Observations

The Court rejected the appellant’s contention that the decree was founded merely on a mutation letter and No-Objection Certificates.

The Court observed: “It is undoubtedly well settled, and indeed no more res integra, that a mutation entry is effected for fiscal purposes alone and does not by itself create, confer or extinguish any right, title or interest in immovable property. Had the decree rested upon mutation simpliciter, the grievance may well have merited consideration. That, however, is not the case at hand.”

It held that the learned ADJ decreed the suit not on the mutation letter as a source of title, but on the appellant’s own admissions. The Court noted that the appellant had admitted the mutation letter, No-Objection Certificates and affidavits of the sisters of Respondent No. 1, and had also admitted pleadings touching upon his ownership.

The Court held: “The Mutation Letter thus, operated not as a source of title, but as a document the contents whereof stood admitted. It is the admission, and not the document, which furnished the foundation for the decree, and the Authorities pressed into service by the Appellant on the effect of mutation entries are therefore, of no assistance to her.”

The Court reiterated that Order XII Rule 6 CPC can be invoked only where admissions are clear, unambiguous and unconditional, and not where the alleged admission is qualified or capable of more than one construction.

Applying that test, the Court held: “They are not admissions gathered by implication, or spelt out by a strained construction of ambiguous pleadings; they are express admissions made in a solemn Affidavit filed in the course of admission and denial of documents, the very object of which exercise is to narrow the field of controversy and to relieve the parties of the burden of proving that which is not in dispute.”

The Court further held that an admission made in such circumstances, on which the opposite party had acted and the Court had proceeded, could not be resiled from at the appellate stage by later describing it as conditional.

The Court accepted that the suit property answered the description of a shared household under Section 2(s) of the DV Act. However, it framed the real question as whether the appellant had an indefeasible right of residence in the house of her father-in-law or whether the right was subject to limitations.

Referring to S. Vanitha v. Deputy Commissioner, Bengaluru Urban District (2021), the Court noted that competing rights under the DV Act and the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 have to be harmonised.

The Court observed: “The harmonisation, which the law enjoins, does not require that the right of residence be extinguished; what it requires is that the right be secured in a manner, which does not visit the entire burden upon a senior citizen being the father-in-law, who owes the Appellant no obligation, whatsoever.”

The Court held that the right conferred by Section 17(1) of the DV Act is a right of residence simpliciter and does not create or enlarge any proprietary interest in favour of the woman.

The Court observed: “It is a right to reside, and not a right to own, to hold adversely to the owner, or to put the owner's title in issue.”

It found that the appellant had entered the property upon marriage with the permission of Respondent No. 1 and in the company of his son, and was at best a permissive user whose licence had been withdrawn by the owner.

The Court further held: “The character of her occupation is not transformed merely because the premises answer the description of a shared household; what the Act safeguards is the fact of her residence, and not the foundation upon which she came to reside.”

The Court examined Section 19(1)(f) of the DV Act and held that the statute itself contemplates that residence rights may, in appropriate cases, be worked out through alternate accommodation or rent, rather than continued occupation of the shared household itself.

The Court observed: “What Section 19(1)(f) secures to the aggrieved person is accommodation of the same level as that which she enjoyed in the shared household, or rent in lieu thereof, and the obligation to provide the same is cast upon the respondent from whom her entitlement flows.”

The Court added that the Act guarantees shelter commensurate with what the woman enjoyed, not necessarily the specific premises in which she happened to reside.

The Court found that its interim arrangement requiring the husband to pay ₹35,000 per month towards rent was, in substance, the relief contemplated by Section 19(1)(f) of the DV Act. It observed that the appellant was not being rendered shelter-less but was being relegated to a statutory mode of securing residence.

The Court noted that the Mahila Court had earlier observed that the appellant was at liberty to leave the matrimonial house and shift to rented accommodation, and that upon doing so, her husband would be liable to pay rent. Relief had been declined at that stage only because the appellant had not expressed intention to shift or produced a lease agreement.

The Court held that this was not a rejection of the claim on merits. It observed: “The claim was thus, not rejected upon merits; what the learned MM did was to affirm the liability of the husband, while deferring the relief until the contingency of the Appellant's shifting should arise. That contingency has since arisen.”

The Court therefore held that dismissal of the appeal would not disturb the arrangement made earlier to ensure that the appellant was not rendered shelter-less after eviction from the suit property.

Conclusion

The Delhi High Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the decree of possession passed in favour of Respondent No. 1. It held that the father-in-law had followed due process by instituting a civil suit for possession, and that the decree passed under Order XII Rule 6 CPC did not suffer from illegality or perversity.

The Court clarified that Respondent No. 2, the husband, shall remain bound to comply with the rent arrangement. It directed him to clear arrears accrued since the expiry of the one-year advance rent period expeditiously and, in any event, within four weeks of the appellant vacating the suit property. He was also directed to continue paying ₹35,000 per month towards rent till disposal of the inter se matrimonial proceedings.

The Court clarified that it had not quantified the arrears, since the execution petition was pending before the Additional District Judge and the husband’s objections were awaiting adjudication. The appellant was granted liberty to pursue her remedies in those proceedings, which were directed to be decided on their own merits and uninfluenced by observations in the appeal. Pending applications were disposed of.