Complainant Consented, Was Hand-In-Gloves With Leaders Of Rival Parties: MP High Court Quashes FIR For Unnatural Offences Against Former Minister

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has quashed an FIR registered against former state finance minister Raghavji in 2013, in which he was accused of indulging in unnatural offences with his former male domestic help, observing that the complaint was filed with "malicious" intentions.

Raghavji had filed a petition seeking the quashing of the first information report (FIR) registered against him under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 377 (unnatural offences), 506 (death threat), 34 (common intention) at Habibganj police station in Bhopal.

The complaint was lodged against him by his domestic help on July 7, 2013. The complainant cited a CD purportedly showing Raghavji in "compromising" positions.

After the registration of the FIR, Raghavji, who handled the finance portfolio at that time, had resigned.

In its order passed on June 14, the Court said after leaving Raghavji's house, the complainant gave a written complaint that the former forced him to indulge in unnatural sex in exchange for keeping him in his job and it continued from 2010 to May 2013 when he left the house.

In the order, Justice Sanjay Dwivedi observed, "No offence under Section 377 of IPC is made out as it is a case of consent and further that the prosecution of petitioner (Raghavji) is malicious, therefore, I allow the petition." Thus, the FIR registered at the Habibganj police station is hereby quashed, the High Court said.

Senior Advocate Shashank Shekhar appeared for the petitioner while Government Advocate LAS Baghel appeared for the prosecution.

"Appreciating the facts and circumstances, gleaned material by the prosecution and also the settled legal position, I am of the opinion that the complaint is sugar-coated with ill-motive, made to belittle the image in society and casting a stigma on the name of high-up-place person, who also holds important portfolio in the State of MP," the court said.

The complaint was maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance, it said.

For almost three years, the complainant remained reticent and astoundingly it is only after he left the petitioner's house, he felt humiliated that he made the complaint, it added.

"Further, I find that the complaint was made after handing-in-gloves with the leaders of rival parties and therefore it is nothing but the assimilation of personal and political antipathies, more precisely, a politically oriented-animosity, which makes the petitioner's prosecution malicious," the judge said in the order.

The admission of the complainant that he planned and prepared a CD itself raises clouds over the demeanour of the complainant and suggests that he was anyhow bent upon collecting material against the petitioner so that at a later point in time it can be used against the petitioner, the court said.

The relief of quashing FIR is based on the solitary ground that it is malicious and the offence under Section 377 of IPC is not made out at all, Raghavji's counsel Shashank Shekhar submitted.

The petitioner's counsel submitted in the court that the FIR nowhere says that the petitioner had developed a physical relationship and committed alleged unnatural sex without the consent and that the complainant ever opposed it.

Shekhar argued that the complainant himself has stated that he made a plan with another so-called victim and they got videos recorded and prepared a CD, which showed that the petitioner was involved in such an offence and was committing unnatural sex not only with the complainant but also with the other person.

The video recording was produced by the complainant, but it is not admissible for want of requisite certificate of Section 65-B of the Evidence Act, the counsel said.

In his statement recorded by the police, the complainant's father said the complainant's mental condition is not stable and that he is in the habit of making fallacious allegations against high-up-place persons. This statement is part of the chargesheet, he added.

Click here to read/download Order

With PTI inputs