HC ‘no’ to use of criminal prosecution as harassment tool
Times of India | 7 October 2024
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has quashed a complaint against a man accused of trespassing and outraging a woman’s modesty, holding that the court must ensure that criminal prosecution is not used as an instrument of harassment or for seeking private vendetta or with an ulterior motive to pressurise the accused /petitioner.
“In such view of the matter, I find that the continuance of further proceeding against the present petitioner will be mere abuse of the process of the court,” said Justice Justice Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee.
The petitioner, Ashok Kumar Sarkar sought the quashing of the complaint at Ketugram PS under IPC sections 448 (punishment for house-trespassing), 409 (breach of trust by public servant), 354 (intend to outrage a woman’s modesty) and 34 (common intention). The case was pending before the additional chief judicial magistrate, Katwa.
The de facto complainant had alleged that on May 30, 2020, the accused, along with four people, abused her verbally, trespassed into her house and assaulted her and outraged her modesty.
The petitioner had already got anticipatory bail from the sessions judge, East Burdwan. The counsel for the accused stated that the complaint by the woman was a “counter blast” of an ongoing civil suit concerning property dispute. The pendency of the case was not mentioned in the written complaint. It was claimed that the present case was initiated for harassing the petitioner.
The counsel for the state, however, disputed the appeal and submitted that the proceeding should not be quashed without having a trial. The court noted that from the case diary it appeared that police recorded statements of four witnesses, who made similar statements and most importantly, none of them attributed any specific allegation against the petitioner.
Furthermore, considering the case diary and the background of dispute between the complainant and the accused, the judge stated that he was unable to persuade himself to hold that the materials available discloses the offences alleged in the FIR.