India, Dec. 31 -- A long period of separation between spouses does not provide any ground for dismissal of complaints under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (DV) Act, 2005, the Bombay high court observed while rejecting a petition filed by a 74-year-old surgeon, seeking quashing of a DV complaint filed by his estranged wife.

The petitioner had claimed that he and his wife had been living separately for six years before she filed the complaint and therefore there was no "domestic relationship" between them.

The couple, both doctors and residents of Parsi Colony in Dadar, got married in January 1975 and have two sons. They started residing separately 2012 onwards; six years later, in 2018, the wife invoked section 12 of the ...