Karnataka High Court directs DGP to alert police about woman who filed 10 criminal cases against 10 men

The Karnataka High Court recently directed the State's Director General of Police (DGP) and Inspector General of Police to alert all police stations about a woman litigant who had filed ten criminal cases against ten different men over the past decade..Justice M Nagaprasanna directed the DGP to communicate to all police stations across Karnataka the details of the woman’s identity, her past record etc, to ensure she did not indulge in any further abuse of the process of law.“The details of the woman complainant be available on the database of the police stations, so that they could be cautious when the complainant would want to register a crime against any other man. The police station before whom this complainant would seek to register a crime shall not register the same without conducting any appropriate preliminary enquiry. This is to curb, if not stop wanton registration of crimes against several men. Ten have been seen, it is only to stop the eleventh,” the order stated..The Court passed the directions while quashing one of the cases filed on the complaint of the woman under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)..On the last hearing, while going through the case papers, the Court realised that the woman seemed to be a serial litigant, and had filed ten criminal cases against ten different men between 2011 and 2022.It noted that the first case was registered in 2011. Four years later, the wman registered a criminal complaint against one Hanumesha for criminal intimidation. That same year, she registered a complaint against a third man, one Santosh, alleging rape on the breach of promise of marriage.This trend continued and she filed a total of five cases for rape, two for cruelty, and three for molestation and criminal intimidation against ten men between 2011 and 2022..After going through the other nine complaints registered by the woman, the Court noted a pattern, stating in its order,"One common stream that runs through all the orders of acquittal are non-appearance of the complainant despite repeated notices. Therefore, the complainant has registered crimes without any rhyme or reason against several men and their family members, which drew them as accused into the web of proceedings, even for the offence under Section 376 of the IPC, which lead those accused to be taken into custody and bail being secured after a long period in custody...The intention is clear. It was only to harass those persons who had nothing to do with the complainant, more than 10 men have fallen prey to the antics and tactics of the complainant, bordering on a honey trap character of the complainant...".The Court noted that even in the present case, the woman failed to appear or make a representation through her counsel.While passing the order, the Court said that all the complaints registered by the woman were merely means to harass the accused persons. The police and courts though were forced to waste time and resources following such cases, it added..Senior Advocate Murthy D Naik and Advocate Vikram Ramalingam R appeared for the petitioner.Additional Special Public Prosecutor Jagadeesha BN appeared for the State..[Read Order]