BENGALURU: A domestic cat named ‘Daisy’ appears to have driven everyone crazy, and even the criminal justice system and police ought not to have entertained a kidnap complaint, which did not indicate any cognizable offence, the Karnataka High Court said, quashing criminal proceedings initiated by a woman against her neighbour, who was chargesheeted by police entertaining a frivolous complaint for ‘extraneous reasons’.
“If the contents of the complaint are seen, it shocks the conscience of the court as to how the jurisdictional police could have registered the complaint. There is no offence in the complaint, except a missing cat and alleged wrongful custody of the cat in the house of the accused. The safety of her cat, which the complainant contends she was taking care of like a child, forms the fulcrum of the complaint.
The entire police machinery gets involved in the case of a missing cat, recording statements of neighbours, checking CCTV footage and finding nothing, but filing a charge sheet, dropping offences under Sections 428 and 429 IPC, but retaining offences under Sections 504 (intentional insult), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (insult the modesty of a woman) of the IPC,” the high court observed.
Justice M Nagaprasanna made these observations while allowing the petition filed by Taha Husain of Shikharipalya of Anekal taluk in Bengaluru Rural district, questioning the FIR registered by Hebbagodi police, based on a complaint dated February 1, 2022, by Nikitha Anjana Iyer, who resides in an apartment next to the petitioner. It was alleged that ‘Daisy’ went missing and in a case of kidnapping, the cat had been wrongfully confined by the petitioner.
The complainant underwent unnecessary stress and emotional trauma. The charge sheet narrates that abuses were hurled and sexual gestures made against the complainant by the petitioner.
Quashing the proceedings, the court said a plethora of cases is filed, complaining that police are not entertaining the complaints. But here, for a missing cat and no other offence, FIR is registered only to assuage the feelings of the complainant, who is distressed because the cat leapt from one window to another, the court observed.
“It is not merely present prosecution warrants judicial censure, it is symptomatic misuse of the criminal process, where hurt feelings or robust grievances masquerade as legal wrongs. If such frivolous grievances are allowed to blossom into a full-fledged criminal trial, it would be nothing but wasting of precious judicial time... and more gravely, diverting police resources from genuine grievances.... putting a premium on the litigious persistence of the complainant and reducing the criminal justice system to conduct a trial, in a melodrama woven around a cat”, the court observed.
Permitting the petitioner to initiate proceedings for malicious prosecution against the complainant as she was not represented by an advocate, the court said police too deserve stern admonishing, for allowing themselves to be swept into whimsical pursuit of justice for a cat. Cases of this nature should serve as a gentle but firm reminder to all stakeholders in the criminal justice system that the law is a solemn instrument and not a toy to be played at the altar of personal pique, the court added.