HC grants Govt 1 week as ‘final opportunity’ for details, else Director SWD to appear
Srinagar, Apr 3: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh High Court has granted the government a week’s time as “final opportunity” to file an affidavit indicating details about setting up of shelter homes for destitute women in Jammu and Kashmir as mandated under the Domestic Violence(DA) Act, 2005. A bench of Chief Justice Tashi Rabstan and Justice M A Chowdhary also held that in case the affidavit was not filed then the Director Social Welfare Department(SWD) Kashmir shall appear in person before court on April 16.
The directions came after the court perused its Registry’s report that no affidavit was filed till date in terms of orders it had passed on July 22, 2024 and December 30, 2024. The Court granted Government advocate Faheem Nissar Shah one week as “final opportunity” to do the needful after he requested for the same. A Public Interest Litigation (PIL), filed by an organisation, Mehram Women’s Cell Kashmir is seeking court’s intervention for establishing shelter homes for destitute women in Jammu and Kashmir in keeping with the Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
In March last year, the organisation filed a response to a status report submitted by the authorities in the PIL as the same was considered “inadequate” on various aspects for proper implementation of the DV Act, 2005 in terms of infrastructure and manpower.
The organisation contends that setting up of shelter homes as mandated by the DV Act play a prominent role in the efficacious implementation of the social welfare legislation.The organisation claims that the Act was drafted and passed with the object of effectively protecting the rights of the women guaranteed under the Constitution who are victims of violence of any kind occurring within the family. “It has been more than a decade since the Act came into force in J&K and yet the state Government has failed to execute and implement the Act properly”.
“There are no shelter homes available for the victims of domestic violence in J&K,” the organisation says. It says the Government has failed not only to discharge the statutory obligations but has equally failed in fulfilling and showing the requisite commitment to the constitutional and international duties and obligations concerning the establishment of shelter homes.
