Karnataka HC declares arrest of Kodagu homestay owner ‘illegal’ in connection with alleged rape of U.S. national
Observing that the fundamental rights of the citizens of India cannot be bartered away merely because the police received a complaint from an embassy of
Observing that the fundamental rights of the citizens of India cannot be bartered away merely because the police received a complaint from an embassy of a country, the High Court of Karnataka has declared illegal the arrest of a Kodagu homestay owner in connection with the alleged rape of a 33-year-old U.S. citizen by a housekeeper at the property in April this year. The court also directed the State government to pay ₹5 lakh compensation to the petitioner-owner within four weeks for curtailing his personal liberty by arresting him illegally. Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while partly allowing a petition filed by the 55-year-old owner of the homestay in Kutta, Kodagu district. ‘Affront to Article 21’ “The arrest of the petitioner stands as a glaring affront to Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
By such unlawful deprivation of liberty, the petitioner was not merely detained; he was subjected to indignity, humiliation, and the trauma that inevitably accompanies the coercive arm of the State being unleashed without lawful justification,” the court said. The court noted that offences initially invoked against the petitioner were all non-cognisable ones – causing the disappearance of evidence, refraining from providing information of the offence and criminal intimidation — as the petitioner was not in the homestay when the alleged crime took place. The police — after arresting him sans any material against him that necessitated his arrest — invoked Section 3(5) [common intention] of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita only while seeking his custody for interrogation before the magistrate court, without even serving him the grounds of arrest, Justice Nagaprasanna said. On the petitioner’s contention that his fundamental rights to personal liberty could not have been taken away without following due process as the U.S. consulate had requested action, the court observed, “Merely because the Embassy of the United States of America or any other country would communicate a complaint to the investigating agencies of this Nation, it would not mean that the fundamental rights of the citizens of the Nation should be bartered away.” Compensation While awarding ₹5 lakh compensation, the court made it clear that this compensation shall not operate as a bar to the petitioner pursuing any additional claim for damages before a competent civil court in enforcement of a private law remedy.
“The present compensation is but a constitutional acknowledgement of the wrong suffered; it neither exhausts nor extinguishes the petitioner’s remedies in private law,” the court made it clear. Proceedings stayed Meanwhile, acting on a separate petition filed by the homestay owner, the court stayed further criminal proceedings arising from the chargesheet filed against him and two others. The court also directed the police to serve notice of the petition challenging the chargesheet on the complainant via email, noting
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