Karnataka High Court quashes proceedings against realtor under SC/ST Act

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has quashed the proceedings against a realtor for offences punishable under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, filed by his business partner. The court noted that a pure and simple financial dispute between the partners of a firm is projected to become a crime under the Atrocities Act.

“The law when misused ceases to be a shield and becomes a sword. The complainant, to wreak vengeance or arm twist the petitioner for financial dispute, has made use of the criminal justice system. The subject complaint is a blade of vengeance, cloaked in the garb of law. A criminal trial, if permitted to proceed on afore narrated glaring facts, it would amount to an egregious abuse of legal machinery and would undoubtedly result in patent injustice,” Justice M Nagaprasanna said while allowing the petition filed by Vilas Bhormalji Oswal, a native of Solapur, Maharashtra.

The petitioner along with his wife and others had entered into a partnership with the complainant Somashekara, a resident of Bengaluru. After differences cropped up between them on the score that petitioner did not sign several documents pertaining to the firm, Somashekara filed a complaint with the Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement (DRE) cell. He alleged that Vilas had threatened him with dire consequences and hurled abuses by taking the name of his caste.

The petitioner moved the high court challenging the chargesheet filed by the police for offences punishable under sections 3(1)(r), 3(1)(s), 3(2)(v-a) of the Atrocities Act. He claimed that the case under the Atrocities Act was registered to settle scores whereas he merely stated that ‘do not show your caste mindset ‘during the altercation.

The court noted that there was no other allegation in the complaint and the statement of the complainant, except the utterance of the words ‘not to show casteist mindset’, which is more a rebuke than reproach.

“The charge sheet however presents a miraculously enriched narrative – a classic instance of retrospective embellishment. The transformation between the complaint, statements and summary of the charge sheet is too conspicuous to ignore, as the name of the caste comes here for the first time. If the complainant was abused with the name of the caste, nothing prevented him from narrating the same in the complaint before the DCRE. Before the DCRE all that the complainant alleges is hurling of an abuse, do not display your casteist mindset. But, in the charge sheet the improvement is seen,” the court said.