By The Hindu Bureau
The High Court of Karnataka on Friday quashed a criminal case registered against Malayam film director Ranjith Balakrishnan on the allegation of sexually assaulting an aspiring male actor in December 2012 in a room of a hotel situated near the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru.
Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar passed the order while allowing the petition filed by Mr. Ranjith, who had questioned the first information report (FIR) registered under Section 377 (carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal) of the Indian Penal Code, and under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The FIR was registered by the Bengaluru city police on October 26, 2024, on its transfer to Bengaluru by the Kerala State police before whom the actor had lodged the complaint earlier.
While allowing Mr. Ranjith鈥檚 plea against the FIR, the court said it would release a detailed order later.
At non-existing hotel
The court in December 2024 stayed the investigation into the case after noticing that the hotel in which the alleged offence was said to have been committed, did not even exist in 2012.
The complaint on the face of it is false as the Taj hotel near the international airport started its operation only in 2016, and this information is in the public domain, that is four years after the incident, the court had observed while staying the probe while pointing out that 鈥渢he vivid narration about the incident at Taj hotel is absolutely false and a canard鈥.
Delayed complaint
The court, while staying the probe, had also noted that the delay of 12 years in lodging the complaint was left completely unexplained by the complainant while terming the complaint as 鈥渁 classic case of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in everything)鈥.
It was alleged in the complaint that the petitioner-director had called the complainant-actor to come to a room on the fourth floor of the 鈥榟otel鈥 near the airport in December 2012 and sexually abused him. Besides, it was alleged that the petitioner-director had taken the complainant鈥檚 nude photographs and sent them to an actress in Kerala.