“The details of the woman complainant be available on the database of the police stations so that they could be cautious when the complainant would want to register a crime against any other man,” the single judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna noted as quoted by Live Law.
“The police station before whom this complainant would seek to register a crime shall not register the same without conducting any appropriate preliminary enquiry. This is to curb, if not, to stop wanton registration of crimes against several men. Ten have been seen, only to stop the eleventh,” it added.
The court issued the order while hearing a petition filed by the husband and in-laws seeking the quashing of offences lodged against them under sections 323, 498A, 504, 506, and 149 of the Indian Penal Code by the wife. Interestingly, this was the complainant’s tenth crime in the past decade.
Senior Advocate Murthy D Naik, who appeared for the petitioners, supplied significant data about the woman’s past allegations, which the prosecution confirmed as genuine. The court then went to all nine previous complaints filed by the woman.
“The complainant has registered crimes without any rhyme or reason against several men and their family members, which drew them as accused into the web of proceedings, even for the offence under Section 376 of the IPC, which lead those accused to be taken into custody and bail being secured after a long period in custody. Those accused were also made to undergo the rigmarole of trial only to be acquitted for want of cooperation from the hands of the complainant,” it noted.
“The intention is clear. It was only to harass those persons who had nothing to do with the complainant, more than 10 men have fallen prey to the antics and tactics of the complainant, bordering on a honey trap character of the complainant, by way of the aforesaid modus operandi,” it added.
It went on to say that for the past decade, the unmistakable inference has been that the complainant has been crying wolf and has been registering crimes with no substance, resulting in the accused being taken into custody and having to secure bail, only to be acquitted in the end.
It stated that the Police were looking into fraudulent allegations or crimes filed by the complainant and that the Criminal Courts were conducting trials in which all of the accused were acquitted at every stage of the proceedings.
“The incidents that happened between 28th August 2022 and 22nd September 2022 for 25 days are projected to be a crime for offences punishable under Section 498A of the IPC, among other things against all the members of the family, including an age-old lady of 75 years who has not even seen the complainant. Even other family members are vaguely brought into the web of crime.”
“If this proceeding cannot become mala fide, I fail to understand which proceeding can be termed to be a mala fide action on the part of the 2nd respondent/complainant. Permitting further proceedings to continue in the case at hand, or any further investigation or to file a final report will be putting a premium on the continued illegal activities of the complainant all of which are narrated hereinabove,” it concluded.
