NAVEEN NARAYAN Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned High Court Government Pleader and perused the materials placed before the Court.

(2.) The present petitioner is the husband of the complainant Smt.Asha C.S. The said complainant in her complaint has stated that she was given in marriage to the petitioner on 18.6.2018. However, soon after her marriage, the accused and his family members started subjecting her to harassment and assaulting her on trivial matters. In that regard, she had lodged a complaint against those people before Chandra Layout Police Station on 15.3.2019, which police had summoned them and got a written undertaking by them about their proper conduct with respect to the complainant. According to the complainant, even thereafter, the accused intensified their harassment against her and were demanding a cash of Rs.50 lakhs to be brought by her from her parents' house. In that regard, on 20.4.2019, while she along with her husband i.e., the present petitioner, returning in a car from Dharmastala to Bengaluru, the accused started quarrelling with her while driving the car. While they were near Kunigal village on National Highway-75 Bypass, the petitioner/accused with an intention to kill her, took out an iron rod that was kept in the car and attempted to assault her. Though she could avoid the first attack made by her husband, but, his second attack inflicted bleeding injury on her forehead. Despite she pleading to stop the car and yelling for help, he did not stop. However, her continued yelling seeking for help invoked the response by a rider of a motorcycle on the same road, who made that car to stop and noticed that the complainant had sustained bleeding injuries.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner in his arguments submitted that a reading of the complaint in its entirety no where shows that the complainant has alleged any intention on the part of the accused of committing her murder. Learned counsel also stated that an attempt to strangulate by a co-passenger in a car while the accused was driving the car is impracticable. Even if it is taken as an attempt to assault or an act of assault which was practiced in a car, but, the same is due to sudden and grave provocation instigated by the complainant herself. The learned counsel further submitted that the complainant who claims herself to be an injured was relieved/discharged from the hospital on the same day i.e., on 20.4.2019 itself and after which, she came to her husband's house, wherein some negotiations took place. It is only after the failure of the said negotiation, the complainant has proceeded to lodge a false complaint against her husband. Stating that the accused being an innocent person, has not even attempted to abscond, learned counsel prays for his enlargement on bail.