The Domestic Violence Act and Other Laws: Concurrent Remedies and Section 36

The DV Act was never meant to stand alone. Section 36 declares it in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other law, and a woman facing domestic violence typically holds a bundle of remedies at once: criminal prosecution under the BNS, maintenance under the BNSS and personal law, matrimonial relief under the Hindu Marriage Act, custody under the guardianship statutes, and the Act's own civil orders threading through them all. This note maps the Act's relations with each neighbouring law, the points of friction, above all with the Senior Citizens Act, and the rules that keep concurrent remedies from becoming double recovery.

1. Section 36: The Charter of Concurrency

One sentence carries the architecture. The Act adds a civil, protective layer; it subtracts nothing from the criminal, matrimonial, maintenance or property law. From it flow the working rules: parallel proceedings are legitimate by design; election is not forced; findings in one forum inform but do not bind another (the standards of proof differing); and overlapping monetary awards, the one real risk of duplication, are handled by disclosure and adjustment (Rajnesh v. Neha, (2021) 2 SCC 324; Sections 12(2) and 26(3) of the Act).

2. The Criminal Law: BNS, BNSS and BSA

The Act runs beside the new criminal codes at every joint:

• Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023: cruelty by husband or relatives (Sections 85 and 86, former 498A), the express criminal counterpart of Section 3, chargeable alongside breach under Section 31(3); dowry death (Section 80); criminal breach of trust for stridhan (Section 316, former 406, Pratibha Rani v. Suraj Kumar, (1985) 2 SCC 370); hurt, restraint, intimidation and the sexual offences, with the marital rape exception (Section 63, Exception 2) under challenge before the Supreme Court while the DV Act's civil remedy for sexual abuse operates regardless.
• Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023: supplies the Act's procedure via Section 28, the maintenance jurisdiction of Section 144 (former 125 CrPC) that runs parallel to Section 20, and the inherent power of Section 528 exercised sparingly over DV proceedings (Shaurabh Kumar Tripathi, 2025).
• Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023: the presumption of marriage from long cohabitation (Section 119), electronic evidence certification (Section 63), and the dowry-death and abetment presumptions (Sections 117 and 118).
• Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961: defines dowry for the DV Act (Section 2(h)), criminalises giving, taking and demanding it, and by Section 6 holds dowry in trust for the woman, the civil recovery of articles running through Sections 18(e) and 19(8) of the DV Act.
• POCSO Act, 2012: where the victim of sexual abuse within the household is a child, POCSO's offences and child-friendly procedure apply, with the DV Act protecting the mother and children on the civil side.

3. Matrimonial and Maintenance Law

• Hindu Marriage Act, 1955: cruelty grounds divorce and judicial separation (Section 13(1)(ia)), and the DV record often supplies the proof; maintenance pendente lite and permanent alimony (Sections 24 and 25) run parallel to Section 20, adjusted under Rajnesh v. Neha; in restitution proceedings (Section 9) the history of violence answers the demand for cohabitation. Judicial separation leaves the marriage, and the wife's status as aggrieved person, intact (Krishna Bhattacharjee, (2016) 2 SCC 705).
• Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956: the wife's right to maintenance and, in defined circumstances, to separate residence with maintenance (Section 18), a personal-law cousin of the Act's residence and monetary orders.
• Section 144 BNSS: the summary maintenance jurisdiction for wives, children and parents; Section 20(1)(d) expressly permits DV maintenance under or in addition to it, with adjustment, and the DV route remains the clearest for live-in partners (Lalita Toppo, (2019) 13 SCC 796).
• Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, HMGA, 1956 and the Family Courts Act, 1984: the plenary custody and guardianship forums, beside which Section 21's temporary custody operates as an emergency measure, the child's welfare paramount everywhere.
• Property law: title and possession are decided in civil courts; the DV Act overlays the right to reside (Section 17) and its restraints, raised as a defence in the owner's suit via Section 26 (Satish Chander Ahuja, (2021) 1 SCC 414), while stridhan is recoverable civilly (Section 19(8)) and criminally (Section 316 BNS).

4. The Senior Citizens Act: The Hard Case

The sharpest statutory collision is with the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, whose summary eviction machinery elderly owners invoke against daughters-in-law claiming the shared household. The Supreme Court's answer in S. Vanitha v. Deputy Commissioner, Bengaluru Urban District, (2021) 15 SCC 730, is harmonisation: the 2007 Act cannot be deployed to defeat the DV Act's right of residence, nor the DV Act to erase the elders' statutory protection; both being special and beneficial, they are read together, with competing claims balanced on the facts. The working balance, visible from Vinay Varma v. Kanika Pasricha (Delhi HC, 2019) to the Delhi Division Bench of 2025, runs through alternative accommodation: the woman's residence right is honoured in substance, adequate housing or rent at the family's cost, while elderly owners recover the peace of their own home.

5. Keeping Concurrency Honest

6. Related Topics and Provisions