HC Division Bench reserves appeal in Ponnani rape case against police officers

The Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday reserved its verdict on an appeal filed against a single judge’s directive to the First Class Magistrate Ponnani to decide on a complaint filed by a woman against IPS officer Sujith Das and some others. police officers want to register an FIR against allegations of rape against officers.

In the appeal filed by Ponnani Circle Inspector Vinod Valiyathur, a Bench comprising Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice S. Manu orally observed that the court was concerned about the procedure adopted by the single judge. “Ideally, the authority to decide on the matter should have been left to the criminal court of peace. The independence of the lower judiciary is equally important. The judge should have been allowed to do his job. “Monitoring the proceedings of the magistrate’s court by a single judge is inappropriate when no proceedings of the magistrate’s court are contested before the single judge and the magistrate is awaiting a report on the matter from the Deputy Inspector General (DIG).”

Counsel for the appellant submitted that the decision of the single judge was without jurisdiction. The single judge had bypassed the procedure. Unless the magistrate’s court order directing the Thrissur DIG to prepare the report was set aside, no direction could be issued. In fact, the magistrate court had withdrawn its earlier order and passed a fresh order, based on the single judge’s order, directing the police to register an FIR before receiving a report from the DIG. The Criminal Court of Peace had no authority to review its previous decision.

The bench had earlier decided to postpone the registration of the FIR based on the magistrate court’s order.