In an October 21, 2010 judgment, a Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and T.S. Thakur said: “If a man has a ‘keep’ whom he maintains financially and uses mainly for sexual purpose and/or as a servant it would not, in our opinion, be a ‘relationship in the nature of marriage’ for her to claim the benefit of live-in to get maintenance under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. Merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would not make it a ‘domestic relationship’.”
In its petition, the Mahila Dakshta Samiti said: “The expression such as ‘keep,’ which specifically refers to woman, is based on social and cultural prejudices which need to be eliminated in order to prevent discrimination… The expression would perpetuate social and cultural prejudices, and is based on the idea of stereotyping woman.”
Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women called for a change in the traditional roles of men and women in bringing about gender equity. Article 2(F) provided for the States to take all appropriate measures to modify or abolish the existing laws, regulations, customs and practices which constituted discrimination against women, it said.
The organisation said the use of expressions such as ‘keep,’ ‘one-night stand’ and ‘sex with a servant’ were derogatory to women and “is in contrary to what has been envisaged by Article 51A (e) of the Constitution. It sought a direction to expunge the observations made in the judgment, mainly the interpretation of the expression, ‘relationship in the nature of marriage,’ in Section 2 (f) of the Protection of the Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.