Bengaluru: The High Court quashed the FIRs registered against four members of the management and teaching fraternity of a pre-school operating at Bellandur in February on the charges of aggravated sexual assault, abetting sexual assault, rape, and unnatural sexual offence by arraigning them as co-accused along with the prime accused, Manjunath, who was a transport assistant at the school.
“The allegations made in the FIRs and the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in its entirety, do not prima facie constitute the offences alleged against them. As such, continuation of the proceedings against the petitioners would be an abuse of process of law,” said Justice Aravind Kumar while allowing the petitions filed by Veena, Bhaktipreeta Dutta, Saraswathi and Ayisha.
There cannot be any dispute that prosecution would be at liberty to proceed, as per the FIR, against Manjunath, the court said in its recent order.
The police, in four FIRs, had included charges of aggravated sexual assault, abetting sexual assault under Sections, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 17 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012; and Sections 376, 377 and 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) even against the school’s director, principal, co-ordinator, and a teacher.
