CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered custody of a minor child back to her mother and quashed the criminal proceedings moved against her. The police had booked her for abetting sexual harassment of the child by her husband, based on a complaint lodged by the woman’s sister and mother who had wanted to take the child away from her.
The orders were passed by a division bench of justices MS Ramesh and Sunder Mohan recently while allowing the habeas corpus petition (HCP) by the five-and-a-half-year-old child’s mother, who is employed in a bank in Chennai.
After getting the job in Chennai, the woman left her child with her mother in Mannargudi in 2023. Her mother and an elder sister, a divorcee with no children, brought the child to Chennai on November 30, 2023, and met up at a hotel.
However, to her dismay her husband was arrested the next day by the police, based on a complaint lodged by her sister and mother that he had sexually harassed the child. Subsequently, he was imprisoned. When her complaint lodged to the concerned deputy commissioner was not acted upon, she filed the habeas corpus petition.
After initial hearing, the bench ordered handing over of the child to the mother temporarily after she had expressed her willingness to be under the mother’s care.
However, police filed a final report in a city court by altering sections of the FIR to array her as an accused by charging her of abetting the crime under the Pocso Act.
“We have no hesitation to hold that there was absolutely no iota of legally permissible evidence before the investigating officer to rope in the mother of the child as an accused for the offences under the Pocso Act, especially when the victim in her statement under 164 CrPC has not relied on the alleged abetment or attributed knowledge to the petitioner,” the bench observed.
It added, there also arises a strong suspicion that a scheming attempt may have been made by her sister and mother “to appropriate the custody of the child” by roping in the petitioner as an accused, which would be “gross abuse of the due process of law”.
The bench quashed the criminal charges made against her in the final report. However, it said the prosecution can go ahead with the charges against the child’s father.
Ordering the custody of the child to the mother, the court allowed her sister and mother to visit the child once a month after prior intimation.
BCI says lawyers warned against online ads
Chennai: The Bar Council of India on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court that circulars have been sent to all bar and lawyers associations warning of action against lawyers who advertise on websites offering online legal services. The submission was made before a division bench of justices SM Subramaniam and V Sivagnanam when a case relating to online legal services came up for hearing. The BCI also informed that advertisements on legal services have been removed from online portals as per the court order.