Punjab and Haryana High Court has held thus,

The term domestic violence encompasses a variety of criminal offences. These intra family offences are however are generally between immediate family members but not extended family members or non blood relatives. The phrase ‘domestic violence’ has to be understood in context of ‘domestic relationship and ‘shared household’, and therefore, the reliefs as aforesaid are meaningful only against the persons with whom the person aggrieved shares a ‘domestic relationship’ and a ‘shared household’. However, it has become an unfortunate trend to implead even the distant relatives in such like cases. To this extent at least, the law designed for protection of women is being misused for ulterior motives. It is often argued that the Act has given an undue advantage to the women and is most lethal weapon which women can use to exploit, extort and threaten not only the husband and his family but also his distant relatives. The law thus is being used to terrorise the husbands, their families and distant relatives and this phenomenon has now acquired the name of ‘Legal Terrorism’ and rightly so, given the extent of its misuse, particularly against the distant relatives of the husband as in the instant case.

Citations:

Indiankanoon.org or Casemine link: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/56e66869607dba6b534329fe