‘Domestic Violence needs a renewed political commitment’: Sanjoy Ghose, Nilima Dutta and Ravindra S. Garia on 20 years of the DV Act
This month, the ‘Staying Alive’ series on 20 years of India’s domestic violence law, brings us reflections from the members of the Lawyers Collective team that worked on the drafting of the PWDVA and its Rules.
Asmita Basu
Published on: 16 November 2025, 09:00 am
ON OCTOBER 19, 2025, The Leaflet kickstarted a special year-long series commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (‘PWDVA’). The aim of publishing a special piece a month, leading up to October 26, 2026, the date on which the Indian government issued a notification to bring it into force, is, as I noted previously, to create a “living archive” of the law, its history, its present and the future it demands.
This month, we have a special gathering where I sat down with three individuals: Senior Advocate Sanjoy Ghose, who as an associate of the Women’s Rights Initiative, and Nilima Dutta, who as a trustee of the Lawyers Collective were involved in the drafting of the law, and advocate on record Ravindra S. Garia, who, in later years, played a critical role in framing the Rules as a legal aid officer.
Asmita Basu: What was your involvement with the Lawyers Collective? Sanjoy, you were there when the law was being conceptualised, and the Women’s Rights Initiative (‘WRI’) was also being established.
Sanjoy Ghose: When I started working with Ms. Jaising, I realised that she actually wore two hats. She was the senior advocate who did her professional cases, and she also was very, very actively involved in the social movement, and especially for empowerment of women.
So, we would always have seminars on such issues. I helped Ms. Jaising prepare a paper for an International Bar Association conference. The Supreme Court was coming out with a book on women's empowerment.
Mr. Anand Grove was also actively involved in the HIV-AIDS movement. Slowly, things were working out. Slowly, this was taking the shape of a funded NGO to do HIV-AIDS intervention programs.
And that’s when Nilima Dutta put a thought in Ms Jaising's mind. Ms Jaising used to go to Bombay pretty frequently, and one day when she came back, she was all enthusiastic and bubbly, and said, ‘You know what? Here is a draft (the framework on model legislation on domestic violence), and we have to draft this law on protection of women from domestic violence'.
And, the first thought I had when I saw the law was that the concept of domestic violence sounded so European…non-Indian, in a sense. At that time I thought it would be very impractical. Today, I laugh about it.
