Service Providers under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005: Section 10

Long before the Act existed, it was women's organisations that sheltered survivors, took them to hospital and stood with them before the police. Section 10 brings that civil society experience inside the statute: a voluntary association registered as a service provider acquires legal powers, to record the domestic incident report, to get the woman examined and sheltered, and legal protection for acting in good faith. This note explains registration, the powers and duties of service providers, their protection, and their place in the Act's institutional web.

1. The Text of Section 10

2. Registration: Who Qualifies and How

Registration is the gateway. The applicant must be a voluntary association (a registered society), a company, or a body registered under any other law, whose objective is protecting the rights and interests of women by lawful means, including legal aid, medical, financial or other assistance. Rule 11 of the 2006 Rules prescribes the process: an application to the State Government in Form VI, and registration only if the organisation meets the prescribed standards, for a body offering shelter, for example, adequate and safe premises; for counselling and legal aid, persons with the requisite qualifications. The State issues a certificate of registration, and the register of service providers is maintained district-wise so that Protection Officers can share the list under Section 9(1)(e). In We the Women of India v. Union of India (20 May 2025), the Supreme Court directed States and Union Territories to register service providers within a fixed time, alongside notifying shelter homes, because in many districts none had been registered at all.

3. Powers and Duties in Operation

3.1 Recording the domestic incident report

A service provider may record the DIR in Form I if the aggrieved person so desires, and must forward copies to the Magistrate and the Protection Officer of the area where the violence occurred. This matters because many women approach an NGO they trust before any official. The DIR so recorded stands on the same footing as one by a Protection Officer: the Magistrate must consider it if filed (proviso to Section 12(1)), though no DIR is a precondition to relief (Prabha Tyagi v. Kamlesh Devi, (2022) 8 SCC 90).

3.2 Medical aid and shelter

The service provider may get the woman medically examined, forwarding the report to the Protection Officer and the police station, and must ensure shelter in a shelter home if she requires it, reporting the lodging to the police station. These powers mirror the duties of shelter homes and medical facilities under Sections 6 and 7, which are triggered by a request made by the woman or on her behalf by a Protection Officer or a service provider; the provider is thus a lawful requester whose word the institutions must honour.

3.3 Counselling and legal assistance

Registered service providers supply much of the Act's human support: counselling (counsellors under Section 14 are drawn from members of service providers with prescribed qualifications, under Rule 13), legal assistance in drafting applications and affidavits and instructing counsel, accompanying the woman to the police station, court and hospital, and helping her access legal aid under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. Under Section 5, a service provider that receives a complaint owes the same duty as the police and the Protection Officer to inform the woman of her rights.

4. Protection for Good-Faith Action

Sub-section (3) is the shield: no suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding lies against a service provider or its members for anything in good faith done or intended to be done under the Act towards the prevention of domestic violence. Respondents angered by an NGO's intervention, its report, its sheltering of the woman, its assistance in court, cannot retaliate with defamation suits or criminal complaints, so long as the provider acted honestly under the Act. The protection parallels Section 35 (good-faith protection for Protection Officers) and complements Section 4(2), under which a person who in good faith gives information about domestic violence incurs no liability. Good faith is the boundary: the shield does not cover mala fide fabrication or action wholly outside the Act.

With power comes status and responsibility: under Section 30, members of service providers, while acting under the Act, are public servants, and a provider's records and reports are made and forwarded under statutory authority.

5. The Role of NGOs and Institutional Coordination

Section 10 fits the service provider into a web whose threads run in every direction:

In practice, the quality of a district's response to domestic violence often turns on its NGOs: they bring trust, language, persistence and social knowledge that no official machinery replicates. Section 10's design, public power plus public protection for private compassion, is the Act's acknowledgment of that reality.

6. Related Topics and Provisions