Kochi : The high court has quashed a 2021 criminal case against a veteran theatre practitioner accused of outraging the modesty of a student by beating her on the palm while taking a class on the theatre movement.
The incident occurred in 2021 when the petitioner was taking a class on the theatre movement in Kerala, according to the de facto complainant. The bench further observed that to attract an offence under Section 354 of the IPC, the requisite guilty mind must be established. Therefore, even if the act attributed to the petitioner was accepted at face value, it would not constitute the ingredients of an offence under Section 354 of the IPC, the court held.
The requisite intention to outrage the modesty of the de facto complainant was apparently absent, it said. A bench of Justice Jobin Sebastian passed the order while allowing a petition filed by the theatre artist-cum-director seeking to quash the case. She alleged that he beat her on the palm, thereby outraging her modesty. She further alleged that when she complained about the incident to the head of the department over the phone, he abused her using obscene words with the intention of insulting her modesty. The police subsequently registered a case against both of them on her complaint. The case is pending before a magistrate court.