The Karnataka High Court on Monday stayed criminal proceedings initiated by the city police against a landlord based on a statement by four foreign students whose visas had expired, that they were staying in a flat owned by the petitioner-landlord.
Justice K.N. Phanindra passed the interim order on a petition filed by P. Ashwatha Narayana Reddy, a resident of Chelikere in Kalyan Nagar.
The petitioner has claimed that he had rented the flat to two other students, who were citizens of Democratic Republic of Congo, for a period of one year from September 11, 2016 after verifying their period of visa, which was valid up to June 30, 2017.
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The police, based on the statements of four foreign students who were arrested on the charge of staying beyond their visa period, had claimed that the petitioner had allowed the four students to stay beyond the period of their visa.
However, the petitioner has contended that he had not rented his house to the four accused foreign students but to the two Congo nationals through a written rental agreement in September 2016.
The petitioner also claimed that the jurisdictional police, without any authority of law and sans any material, filed a ‘false’ charge sheet against him arraigning him as co-accused with the four accused foreigners merely based on their purported statements.
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The police had registered the case against four foreign students and the petitioner on February 5, 2017 based on ‘information’ that some foreign students were staying beyond their period of visa in the flat owned by the petitioner, and had filed a charge sheet against them in July this year.