The judgment, delivered on Monday by a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh, recognises that women facing cruelty in domestic settings cannot be denied the protection of criminal law merely because they have not undergone a formal marriage. The legal position until nowSection 498A of the IPC penalises a husband or his relatives for subjecting a woman to cruelty. Also read | Domestic violence law also for couples who shared a home once: Allahabad High CourtThis was what had transpired in the present case as well. The court clarified that a “relationship in the nature of marriage” is a narrower legal subset of a general “live-in relationship”. The judgment noted that the initial burden of proof to establish this intent will lie on the female partner seeking the law’s protection.