The Bombay High Court said families in India often hesitate to report sexual assault and harassment due to social realities, and delay in filing an FIR alone cannot defeat such complaints. Refusing to quash a 2019 molestation FIR, the Court dismissed a Kerala man’s plea over allegations of outraging his domestic worker’s modesty.
The Bombay High Court observed that in a traditional society like India, families often find it difficult to come forward and report incidents of sexual assault and harassment.
The Court said that such cases cannot be rejected merely because there was a delay in lodging the FIR, while refusing to grant relief to a man accused of molesting his domestic help.
A single judge Bench, Justice Ranjitsinha Bhonsale, dismissed a petition filed by a 58-year-old man from Kerala who sought to quash an FIR registered in 2019 for allegedly outraging the modesty of his domestic worker.
According to the complaint, the alleged incident occurred on March 10, 2019, when the complainant went to the accused’s home for work.
The woman claimed that the man molested her. After the incident, she managed to escape and later informed her husband. Her husband then reportedly informed members of their housing society about the alleged wrongdoing.
The woman then lodged a complaint on April 2, following which the FIR was registered.
Before the High Court, the accused argued that the delay in filing the complaint should be considered and claimed that he was falsely implicated by the woman and her husband, who he alleged had demanded money from him.
He also contended that CCTV footage from the day of the incident showed the woman leaving the building calmly and composedly.
However, the High Court rejected these contentions and held that, at least prima facie, a case was made out against the accused.
It observed,
“In a traditional society like ours, unfortunately, many families find it exceedingly and extremely difficult to initiate even a genuine criminal prosecution when such nature of offences are involved,”
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Accordingly, the court said that in such matters, delay by itself cannot be used as a ground to quash a criminal proceeding.
The judge said,
“In my opinion, cases relating to offences against women and similar cases, the criminal prosecution ought not to be thrown out on the sole ground of unexplained delay unless the delay is attributed to some mala fides, personal vengeance or vendetta which is prima facie made out,”