BHOPAL: A couple who were booked by Indore police in 2021 for allegedly harassing and not allowing their two children to watch television and use cell-phone, have got interim relief from the Madhya Pradesh High Court nearly three years later.
A single-judge bench of the MP High Court in Indore headed by Justice Vivek Rusia, while hearing a petition, filed by Ajay Chauhan and his wife Seema Chauhan (residents of Indore) for interim relief, stayed the proceedings of the trial court in the case.
According to the couple’s advocate Dharmendra Chaudhary (former Indian Police Service officer), the couple’s two children – a 21-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son – filed a complaint with the Chandan Nagar police station in Indore in October 2021, alleging physical and mental harassment by their parents.
“The two children had in their complaint alleged that their parents Ajay and Seema Chauhan, thrashed them, locked them up and also deprived them of food. The parents were particularly accused of not allowing the two children to watch television and use cell phones. Some family disputes too were mentioned in the complaint," Chaudhary said.
Based on the complaint, the Chandan Nagar police lodged an FIR under IPC Sections 294, 342, 323 and 506 (obscenity, voluntarily causing hurt, wrongful confinement and criminal intimidation), besides Sections 75 and 82 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
Subsequently, the police also filed a charge sheet regarding the case in the court. The trial in the case was underway in the Indore district court.
The two kids have been living with their aunt (father’s sister), who has some family disputes with her brother (the siblings’ father) since the COVID-19 second-wave lockdown.
“Since the lodging of the FIR on the complaint of their children, the couple has been living under severe mental trauma and met me recently, after which I moved the petition in the MP High Court. The HC’s single judge bench, while accepting our submissions, has ordered that the proceedings of the trial court be stayed,” the retired IPS officer-turned-High Court advocate said.