ISSAC NADAR AND ANR. Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A Magistrate and a Public Prosecutor were involved in a sexual offence. When the story was first reported, it sounded like a charade. The characters involved are a Judicial Magistrate of Second Class, an Assistant Public Prosecutor ('A.P.P.' for short) and a young woman by name Santha. The gravamen of the allegation is that the Magistrate and the Public Prosecutor in concert with each other outraged the modesty of that young lady inside the office room of the A.P.P. at Kattakada. The incident was five days prior to the Christmas Day in 1983. Next day, members of the local bar boycotted the Court. On the case being registered by the police the Government deputed a senior police officer of the rank of a Deputy S.P. to investigate the case as the indicted personages held offices of great trust and honour. The case was charge sheeted, after investigation, and the trial was held before the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate. Both the accused were convicted for the offence under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code. (A.P.P. was convicted for the said offence with the aid of Section 34 of the I.P.C.) Neither the trial Court nor the appellate Court was persuaded to show leniency in the matter of sentence. Accused were hence sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year each.

(2.) FURTHER details are these: Santha (P.W. 1) was a witness for prosecution in a theft case in the Court of Judicial Magistrate of the Second Class, Kattakada. The A.P.P. (second accused) knew her earlier as he had examined her in Court as a witness in the said case. A pair of ear studs, which was the subject matter in the theft case, had been ordered to be returned to Santha. On 20th December 1983 she went to the second accused's office at about 3 p.m. on being informed through a messenger that her ear studs would be delivered to her, if she would reach there in that afternoon. Second accused asked her to get into the inner room of that office and make entreaties of the Magistrate (first accused) to return the ear studs. She expressed her disinclination to go inside the rear room where the first accused alone was sitting but the second accused told her to go there and sit on the bench and assured her that there was no cause for fear. With all those persuasions from the second accused she went inside. No sooner than she sat on the bench, the first accused sitting next to her started exhibiting erotic pranks towards her. He took up her left hand and placed it on his private part. Abruptly she flinched back, but the first accused hugged her. She managed to squirm out of his libidinous hold and ran out weeping. This strange emergence of a young weeping lady attracted the attention of some people who went near her and elicited from her a short account of what happened. Next day evening she and her husband went to the police station and lodged a complaint.

(3.) SRI K.S. Rajamony learned Counsel made a fervent plea for making a careful scanning of the evidence despite the concurrent findings made by two Courts below. Counsel thinks that there could be chances of viewing the episode with prejudice as the personages involved are a Magistrate and a Public Prosecutor. I went through the evidence to satisfy the judicial conscience, albeit inherent limitations involved in supervisory jurisdiction, that the conclusions arrived at by the fact finding Courts have not been influenced by any possible prejudice. I must bear in mind at the same time that the Court should not over look the fact that the first accused was then a sitting Magistrate and the second accused was then holding office of A.P.P. in the same Court, otherwise there was no occasion for the accused to get down the lady in the office of that A.P.P.