BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court allowed the trial against a 31-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh for allegedly blackmailing a woman by recording her private videos on the promise of marriage, after he came in contact with her while preparing for the UPSC examination in Delhi.
Quashing the charges of stalking, the court said, insofar as the allegation of voyeurism as obtained under Section 354C is concerned, the contents of the complaint and the summary of the charge sheet clearly meet the offence of voyeurism.
“The petitioner is alleged to have shot several videos of intimate moments, or even videos of the parts of the body of the complainant. If this is the allegation, and it is sustained while filing the charge sheet, it would undoubtedly meet the allegation of voyeurism”, said Justice M Nagaprasanna while partly allowing the petition filed by the accused questioning the legality of the crime registered by the complainant against him.
The complaint was registered under the provisions of the IPC, Information Technology Act and in light of the fact that the complainant belongs to a Scheduled Tribe, the provisions of the Act were also invoked. Additional State Public Prosecutor BN prayed the court to dismiss the petition, saying that the allegations in the charge sheet are quite vivid for the offences that are laid.
The court said: “The case at hand, except the offence of stalking, revolves around seriously disputed questions of fact, which would require further proceedings before the concerned court. Therefore, this court declines to exercise jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Cr P C, to obliterate the proceedings qua all offences except the offence under Section 354D - stalking, as permitting further trial qua the said offence would undoubtedly become an abuse of the process of law”.