The Madras High Court highlighted the legal system’s lack of support for sexual abuse victims while closing a molestation case where the accused remained unidentified even after three years of the First Information Report (FIR), with the victim being summoned as a witness repeatedly.
A bench of Justice N Anand Venkatesh pointed out the victim’s dual hardship in such cases—first, the trauma of abuse, and second, the additional distress during court proceedings.
Pointing out the imbalance in the legal system, the judge said that this was tantamount to punishing the victim. He said that he would not permit such mockery to continue in the case at hand.
A writ petition was filed before the high court by a woman, challenging the witness summons issued to her by the magistrate court.
THE COMPLAINT
The woman had filed a complaint in November 2020 leading to an FIR under the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act. She reported an incident where a man on a blue scooter allegedly groped her during her morning walk. The police were provided with images from a nearby camera to aid in identifying and apprehending the accused, however, the accused’s identity remained unclear.
The investigation into the matter had been completed and the final report had been filed. The trial court had also taken cognizance for an offence under Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act, 2002. Thereafter, the victim was summoned as witness.
Against the summons, the petitioner/victim argued before the high court that seeking justice after the agonizing incident, she filed a complaint with the hope of identification and legal action against the accused and also provided evidence, however, when on August 11, 2023, she was summoned to the trial court, she endured a day-long wait without progress, reliving the painful incident.
THE COURT’s OBSERVATION
The single-judge bench noted that in this case, the petitioner had been virtually molested in broad daylight and police were not able to properly identify the accused, therefore, if the petitioner undergoes trial, all types of embarrassing questions will be asked to her and she would have to undergo further mental agony in the court.
While pointing out that there were only two so-called eye-witnesses who could only speak about the incident and were not able to identify the accused, the court opined that “at the best, what will come out of this case will be the sexual abuse suffered by the petitioner and nothing else”.
“It is not necessary for a criminal trial to go on just to dabble with an incident involving sexual abuse even without identifying an accused. If this is allowed, it is the victim who will actually be embarrassed and vilified and the so-called accused person will go scot-free, since he has not even been identified by any one in this case,” court held.
Therefore, the court opined that no useful purpose will be served in proceeding further in the matter. Accordingly, apart from quashing the witness summons that was issued to the petitoner/victim, the court, by exercising its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, quash the entire proceeding in the case.
The court said that the decision was taken on the grounds that the very proceedings will result in a punishment to the petitioner for having raised her voice against sexual abuse.
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