New Delhi, May 5: A bureaucrat in the Prime Minister’s Office has been accused under the domestic violence act of torturing his wife — physically and emotionally — after she turned down repeated demands for dowry from his family.

The act, launched last year and touted as one of the government’s major achievements, may come back to haunt the Centre with a Delhi court issuing notices to the bureaucrat and his family.

Shaleen Kabra, a 38-year-old director in the PMO, has been married to Shivani Kabra for the past 13 years.

Shivani, in her complaint before metropolitan magistrate Sanjay Bansal at the Tis Hazari courts here, has alleged that Shaleen and his family started harassing her almost immediately after their marriage in 1994.

On April 10 this year, she came home to find their house locked, and the lock to the entrance changed. Minutes later, Shaleen told her over phone that she was unwelcome at “his” house till she procured the dowry demanded.

Standing outside the government bungalow, Shivani decided she could take no more.

Shaleen’s mother Leelawati, father Ram Parsan and sister-in-law Lata would routinely slap her and make her perform “menial jobs”, Shivani has alleged in her complaint.

According to Shivani, her family paid the Kabras dowry worth Rs 35 lakh at the time of the marriage, apart from completely financing the wedding.

After over five years in the ministry of urban development, Kabra’s move to the PMO in 2002 was accompanied by renewed pressure on Shivani — this time to ask her parents to finance a car and a house.

Shivani said her relationship with Shaleen had been tense leading up to April 10.

The court has agreed to a temporary demand made by Shivani that she be allowed to live in two rooms of the house during the case.

The court has asked Shaleen and his family to file replies to the notices by July 2, when it will also consider Shivani’s appeal to restrain Shaleen’s family from entering the two rooms she is occupying.

The couple’s two children will stay with Shivani in the two rooms for the time being, the court has decided.

Official sources said such matters come under the ambit of the department of personnel and training. Indications suggest Shaleen may be moved out of the PMO — at least while the case is on. Shaleen could not be reached.