MANI E KARKARIA Vs. ELINOR F MIRZA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a case in which two women are fighting over one man. Accused Miss Mani Karkaria met Dr. Mirza husband of the respondent-orig. complainant first when he was studying in the final year in Nair Hospital Dental College in 1954. He married the complainant, a German woman after he went overseas for his studies. The complainant alleges that on 13-4-1972 and 18-4-1972 the accused came to the clinic of Dr. Mirza at about 7 p.m. on Warden Road and called her "bloody bitch" and also called "Nazi bitch, prostitute" and intentionally insulted here and gave her provocation intending or knowing it to be likely that such provocation would cause her to break public peace. The complainant, therefore, charged the accused with the offence punishable under section 504 I.P.C.

(2.) The complainant and her husband reside at Sataiwad Road of Napean Sea Road and her husband has a dental clinic on Warden Road opposite to Beach Candy Hospital. Dr. Mirza having met the accused in his final year in Dental College, where she was a nurse and having started his clinic after returning from the States in September, 1962 engaged the accused as an assistant-cum-nurse. It is because the accused started becoming rude to Dr. Mirza and also to his patients and because she started disobeying him and insulting him in the presence of his patients of his own wife, he terminated her services on 1-3-1972. The complainants charge is that after termination of her service the accused started harassing campaign against her as well as Dr. Mirza and their children by often telephoning them and by other acts near their house as well as near their clinic. She is alleged to have been telephoning them and giving them filthy abuses. She was telephoning not only at their house but also at the office of the complaint at the German Consulate General. The complainant also charges her of following her as well as her husband on innumerable occasions whenever they went to parties or pictures and using abusive language after overtaking them in taxis. The accused also is said to be loitering in the compound of their residence, with a view to spy on their movements. She was warned on several occasions not to do this but she persisted in harassing them.

(3.) The complainants charges against the accused in so far as the events, which took place on 17th and 18th of April, 1972 are these : The complainant in the absence of the accused was helping her husband at the clinic and it is her case that when they were closing their clinic, the accused came there in a taxi and started barging the window panes of the clinic and shouting in an obscene manner. She was also giving her filthy abuses like "you bloody bitch, you swine, come out of the clinic." She is also alleged to have said "I will see to it, how anybody ever works there". These acts attracted several passers by and also the watchman there. Her husband also had to send away his patients due to all this disturbance near his clinic. The complainant says that she did not reply to the actions of the accused but just walked towards their car, which was parked and went away; but the accused is alleged to have followed her in a taxi with another male companion shouting and screaming in a filthy manner and overtaking their car. The accused is alleged to have followed them with the same actions on the next day i.e. 18th and using some dirty words. According to the complainant, the accused was doing all this is order to be smear her husbands reputation and to make him suffer in his business. She says that she had complained on three occasions to the Commissioner of Police to take proper steps against the accused, but was informed that since the offence was of non-cognizable nature, she herself will have to go to the Court.