The High Court of Karnataka has declined to interfere with the registration of multiple First Information Reports (FIRs) against a physical education teacher of a government school in N.R. Pura of Chikkamagaluru district on the allegations of sexual harassment/assault complaints lodged by the Block Education Officer and the parents of the victim students.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while rejecting the petitions filed by Prabhunaika K.T. The petitioner had questioned the legality of the registration of 13 other different FIRs based on complaints by the parents of girl students after the registration of the first FIR on January 15, 2022, based on the complaint given by the BEO.
BEO’s complaint
The BEO had lodged the complaint against the petitioner after a teacher of the school, based on complaints from the parents, had sent a report. The offences under Section 354A of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 8, 10 and 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
Rejecting the petitioner’s contention that multiple FIRs could not have been registered on the same incident, the court said that contents of the FIRs disclose that it was not a solitary incident occurred only on a particular day.
The alleged incidents, according to the complaints, span over one to three months between September 1, 2021 and January 3, 2022, and all the victims are different, the court pointed out as the parents have not given any specific date of occurrence of the incident but had narrated that offences alleged occurred between one to three months period.
As the victims in all these cases are not common but are different, every victim has lodged a complaint, which states a different period of occurrence, the court said that the registration of crimes in multiple FIRs, in the peculiar facts of these cases, cannot be found fault with.
It is for the petitioner to defend himself for the alleged acts against each of the victims, the court said as the petitioner had not challenged the FIR registered based on the BEO’s complaint.
Preposterous
On the petitioner’s contention that out of spite or ill-will by people who are inimical towards him in the institution these complaints are generated or brought up by luring the parents, the court said that it is preposterous, to say the least, as no parent would come forward and without any rhyme or reason register complaint against the petitioner that too alleging that her child has been sexually abused.
“Spite or ill-will against him by other teachers of the institution cannot mean that those who are inimical towards the petitioner want to shoot him from the shoulder of a child through its parents. Such arguments cannot be accepted,” the court observed.
