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The Karnataka High Court under Justice M Nagaprasanna in Kuldeep And State of Karnataka & others (Writ Petition No. 24832 of 2022) ordered the state government to provide a 23-year-old lawyer who was unlawfully detained by the police last month a compensation of Rs. 3 lakh.

FACTS

The petitioner is an advocate who owns certain agricultural property, it abuts an agricultural property of Mrs. Bhavani and K.Vasantha Gowda, her husband. It is averred that K.Vasantha Gowda started obstructing the petitioner of his 4 right to use the road leading to his agricultural property and was attempting to erect a permanent gate with an intention to prevent the petitioner and his family from making use of the road that led to his agricultural property. This constrains the petitioner to approach the Court of the Principal Civil Judge. The Court entertaining the suit grants temporary injunction against K.Vasantha Gowda, in terms of its order dated. The petitioner after securing certified copy of the temporary injunction order communicates it to the SubInspector of Police, Punjalakatte Police Station on to take action to protect his property, in terms of the interim order so granted by the civil Court. It is alleged that there was no action taken by the Police. Mrs. Bhavani registers a complaint against the petitioner. The crime is registered against the petitioner on the complaint made by Mrs. Bhavani for offences punishable 5 under Sections 447 and 379 of the IPC. Therefore, Mrs. Bhavani is the complainant. Even before the FIR could be registered on her complaint, it is alleged that on 02.12.2022 the 4th respondent/SubInspector of Police enters the house of the petitioner at 8.00 p.m. ,the Police caught hold of the neck of the petitioner, drag him, boot him and take him to the Police Station and later register a FIR against the petitioner at 8.15 p.m., on the complaint of Mrs. Bhavani. The incident narrated in the complaint is that the petitioner has attempted to take away the gate that Mrs. Bhavani wanted to erect. Therefore, the offences under Sections 447 and 379 of the IPC were laid against the petitioner. It is the allegation that petitioner’s personal liberty was taken away completely contrary to law. After the arrest, the petitioner applies for interim bail before the concerned Court. The Court records the ill-treatment meted out during arrest of the petitioner by the 4th respondent and assault on the petitioner during the arrest in his house and also observed that intimation to be sent to higher authorities to take 6 action against the Police Officer for violation of personal liberty of the petitioner and grants interim bail. Immediately on release of the petitioner on interim bail, he files a complaint before the Police Station against the 4th respondent and other officers who have manhandled him narrating entire circumstances. Though the complaint was filed before the Police on 09-12-2022, the crime was not registered. This led the petitioner to knock at the doors of this Court in the subject petition. This Court, in terms of its order, directed the learned Additional Government Advocate to seek instructions as to what has become of the complaint registered by the petitioner against the 4th respondent and place investigation papers on record. Even then, the FIR on the complaint of the petitioner was not registered. It is then on the evening of 04-01-2023 the crime comes to be registered against the 4th respondent and others who were involved in the incident of alleged assault against the petitioner. The afore-narrated forms the skeleton of the case at hand.

JUDGEMENT

The court ruled that under no circumstances could the police break the law with such blatant abandon. Notwithstanding the petitioner being an Advocate, he is illegally detained and assaulted, even after bringing it to the notice of the police that he is an Advocate, an Officer of the Court. If an Advocate could be treated in the manner of what he has been meted out in the case at hand, a common man will not be able to bear the brunt of repetition of such treatment. It is, therefore, the perpetrators of such illegality and violators of law, as is laid down by the Apex Court, cannot be left off the hook. They must be proceeded against both in a departmental inquiry, to fix accountability, and under the criminal law to deter any such iteration as, “injustice anywhere; is a threat to justice everywhere” – MLK Jr

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JUDGEMENT REVIEWED BY VAISHNAVI SINGH

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