A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday set aside an order from the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court in Ponnani, which had directed the police to register an FIR based on a complaint alleging sexual assault filed by a woman against IPS officer and former Malappuram Superintendent of Police, Sujith Das, along with two other officers.
The Bench, comprising Chief Justice Nitin Jamadar and Justice S. Manu, also nullified an earlier directive from a single judge, which had instructed the magistrate to issue an order for registering an FIR on the complaint.
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The High Court issued the ruling while considering an appeal filed by Vinod Valiyathur, the Circle Inspector of Ponnani. The Division Bench quashed the order after reviewing a report indicating that the complaint filed by the woman from Ponnani lacked credibility.
In her complaint, the woman had accused the SP, DySP, and Circle Inspector of sexual assault. She approached the High Court after no further action was taken on her complaint. Initially, a single bench of the High Court directed the Ponnani Magistrate Court to make a decision within ten days, prompting the magistrate to issue an order to register a case against the officers, including SP Sujith Das.
During the appeal hearing, the Division Bench, led by Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice S. Manu, expressed concerns about the procedure followed by the single judge. They observed that “ideally, it should have been left to the magistrate court to decide on the matter.”
“The independence of the subordinate judiciary is also crucial. The magistrate should have been allowed to fulfill its duties. The monitoring of the magistrate court’s proceedings by the single judge was inappropriate, especially when no proceedings of the magistrate court were under challenge, and the magistrate was awaiting a report from the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) in the matter,” the court noted in its oral observation.
