Karnataka High Court quashes trespass crime against drone research company

The high court of Karnataka has quashed the investigation for trespass against a company engaged in research and development in the field of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). The Doddaballapur police had registered a suo motu FIR against NewSpace Research and Technologies after a drone belonging to the company glided beyond the green zone area and landed in a neighbouring property in January 2026.

The company is carrying out research and development of testing drones and unmanned systems on a 48-acre of land obtained on lease at Doddaballapur, Bengaluru Rural District, for the last five years. On January 29, 2026, a lightweight research prototype with an estimated weight of seven kgs, fitted with a commercially available Chinese battery, suffered a battery malfunction during a routine test. As a result, it glided beyond the boundary of the leased land and landed into a neighbouring property.

A beat constable attached to Doddaballapur police station reported the incident and a suo motu FIR was registered for offences under BNS sections 329 (trespass) and 125. The petitioner submitted that the FIR did not mention any culpable human entry with the intention of trespass and that there is no allegation of any rash or negligent human act and no specific endangerment to any identified person to invoke section 125. It was further submitted that the copy of the FIR was not supplied despite repeated requests and was indicated that the FIR was uploaded online.

After perusing the material, Justice M Nagaprasanna noted that criminal trespass, predicates liability of intent to commit an offence or to intimidate, insult or annoy the owner of the property. “The recovery is of a drone. Mere recovery of a drone, without anything more, cannot, by any stretch of imagination, satisfy the ingredients of the offence. Therefore, Section 329 of the BNS is loosely laid against the petitioner,” Justice Nagaprasanna said.

The court further said section 125 has been attributed to an inanimate object. Criminal justice system cannot be invoked based on speculative or mechanical attribution of the ingredients of the crime — rash and negligent human act to an inanimate object,” the court observed.

Insofar as the failure to provide a copy of the FIR to the accused, the court said it is the law declared by the Apex Court that an accused is entitled to obtain a copy of the FIR without undue delay.

“Mere assertion that FIR is uploaded online cannot be a substitute for compliance with the obligation. The denial of essential particulars concerning the FIR, renders the rights to access, illusory and undermines the very purpose of transparency envisaged by the Court. It is, therefore, imperative that all Police Stations scrupulously adhere to the mandate of furnishing the copy of the FIR or if it is online, furnishing complete details of the FIR. Any deviation in this regard by the Police Stations would be viewed seriously and those Station House Officers or the Officers in-charge of the Police Station who would not follow this, would become open to initiation of departmental enquiry against those erring officers,” the court said.