'Abuse Of Process Of Law': Delhi High Court Quashes FIR Against Security Guards

(MENAFN- IANS) New Delhi, Jan 6 (IANS) The Delhi High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against two security guards accused of wrongfully restraining and outraging the modesty of a woman while preventing her entry into a private office premises.

Holding that the case was a clear abuse of the process of law arising from a larger family dispute, a single-judge Bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna allowed the pleas filed by the petitioners seeking the quashing of an FIR registered under Sections 341, 354, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Amar Colony police station.

The criminal case stemmed from an incident dated September 18, 2015, when the complainant, widow of a senior executive of the VLS Group of Companies, alleged that she was stopped and manhandled by the petitioners, then newly appointed security guards, while attempting to enter the company's office in East of Kailash.

After examining the complaint and the surrounding circumstances, the Delhi High Court observed that the petitioners had been employed as guards just a day prior to the incident and were merely discharging their official duties.

“The petitioners being Security Guards, had the bounden duty to ensure that no unauthorised person enters the office premises,” Justice Krishna said, adding that the complainant had not even prima facie asserted any legal right to enter the office premises.

Explaining the scope of wrongful restraint under Section 341 IPC, the Delhi High Court held that the offence is attracted only when a person is obstructed from proceeding in a direction in which they have a lawful right to proceed.“Such act of restraining the Complainant for entering the Office for which she had no right, cannot be termed as an act of wrongful restraint,” it observed.

On the charge of outraging modesty under Section 354 IPC, the Delhi High Court found no material to suggest any sexual intent on the part of the petitioners.“By no stretch of imagination, can it be said that this act was intended with a 'sexual intent' to outrage her modesty,” Justice Krishna observed, adding that the act complained of was only to restrain entry and did not disclose the ingredients of the offence.

The Delhi HC further noted that the dispute had its genesis in a bitter conflict between the complainant and her in-laws over shares and assets following her husband's death, and that the guards who had been employed just a day before the incident appeared to have been“targeted” when she was unable to mobilise the police against her in-laws.

Terming the case an“abuse of process of law,” the Delhi High Court quashed the charge sheet and all proceedings arising from the FIR, and discharged the petitioners from all the offences.

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