HC Division Bench reserves its order on an appeal in Ponnani rape case against police officers

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday reserved its order on an appeal filed against a single judge’s directive to the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Ponnani, to pass an order on a complaint by a woman against IPS officer Sujith Das and some other police officers seeking to register an FIR on her allegations of rape against the officers.

In the appeal filed by Vinod Valiyathur, Ponnani Circle Inspector, a Bench comprising Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice S. Manu orally observed that the court was worried about the procedure adopted by the single judge. “Ideally, it should have been left to the magistrate court to decide on the matter. The independence of subordinate judiciary is also equally important. The magistrate should have been allowed to do its duties. The monitoring of the magistrate court’s proceedings by the single judge was inappropriate when no proceedings of the magistrate court was under challenge before the single judge and the magistrate was awaiting a report from the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) in the matter,” court orally observed. 

The counsel for the appellant submitted that the single judge’s order was without jurisdiction. The single judge had bypassed the procedure. Unless and until the magistrate court order directing the Thrissur DIG to file a report was set aside, no direction could have been issued. In fact, the magistrate court had recalled its earlier order and passed a fresh order directing the police to register an FIR even before getting a report from the DIG, on the basis of the single judge’s order. The magistrate court had no power to review its earlier order.

The Bench had earlier ordered deferring registration of the FIR on the basis of the magistrate court’s order.

Published - November 04, 2024 07:30 pm IST