NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has set aside a 17-year-old criminal case against academician and activist Madhu Kishwar, holding that the prosecution was initiated with malicious intent and was a retaliatory move against her own complaint.
Justice Amit Mahajan, in an order passed on October 16, observed that the 2008 FIR accusing Kishwar of attempt to murder and other offences was “a maliciously motivated counter blast” to the case she had earlier lodged against the same complainants.
The court said the initiation of criminal proceedings merely because a complaint discloses a cognisable offence would amount to misuse of judicial process. “Even if the allegations of the complainant are taken at the highest, considering the complainant’s conviction in a case arising out of same incident, it can at best be considered as a self-defence or an altercation…,” Justice Mahajan noted.
The case stemmed from an altercation on December 31, 2007, between Kishwar and members of the Basoya family in Sewa Nagar Market area. The complainants had alleged that Kishwar instructed her driver to run over them during a dispute over alleged unauthorised allotment of shops and that she and her associates assaulted them, causing injuries.
Kishwar, through her human rights organisation Manushi, was photographing alleged illegal constructions in the locality when the confrontation occurred. Her counsel told the court that she had been authorised to monitor civil discipline in the area and that the Basoya family had vested interests in the illegal encroachments she was documenting.