LAWS(KER)-2019-9-128

MAYA VENUGOPAL Vs. STATE OF KERALA

Decided On September 05, 2019
Maya Venugopal Appellant
V/S
STATE OF KERALA Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The subject crime in this case is Crime No.313/2019 of Atholy Police Station, which has initially registered under Section 57 of the Kerala Police Act, 2011 on account of the "alleged missing" of the petitioner herein. Later, the Police, after investigation, has thereafter altered the case as one involving the offence as per Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (J.J.Act), wherein the petitioner herein (aged 38 years) has been arrayed as the sole accused. The first informant in the above case is the sister of the petitioner.

(2.) The prosecution case in short is that the first informant was telephonically informed by the petitioner that on account of her affair with another man (one Ratheesh), she had left her marital home to go along with the said man and that it was found that the petitioner has abandoned the care and protection of her two children, a minor daughter, aged 13 years and minor son, aged 8 years, without the care and protection of any one as her husband has been working in a Gulf country. It appears that the petitioner had gone out of the house from 24.8.2019 and had returned back after three days. Whereas the case of the petitioner is that she has been subjected to harassment by her husband and since there was no peace in her home and as she was extremely mentally disturbed, she was constrained to go out of her house only because of her mental disturbances on account of the marital discord and that she had come back to her home after three days and that she had reported before the Court in the above "person missing case" on 27.8.2019 and that there is no case of intentional abandonment of the children and that she was forced to leave the house only account of the mental disturbances and that the offences are not made out.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner would invite this Court's attention to the operative portion of the Section 75 of the J.J. Act as well as its 1st proviso of the J.J. Act, which read as follows: