Bengaluru: On Monday December 27, the Karnataka High Court’s Dharwad bench has fined a police officer Rs. 1 lakh for keeping a married woman in a rehabilitation centre against her will. The court has also fined the rehabilitation centre.
The court has expressed its displeasure with law enforcement’s act of moral policing, stating that police do not have the authority to interfere with a person’s married life.
After hearing a petition filed by the woman demanding her release from a rehabilitation centre for human trafficking victims, a bench led by Justice N. S. Sanjay Gowda delivered the verdict.
The petitioner, who married in 2004 and had a daughter, decided to leave her husband’s home with the child in 2011 due to a family dispute.
She informed the court that she was summoned to the police station after her husband filed a missing complaint.
According to the woman, she was in love with a man in the neighbourhood and wanted to live with him, so she chose to divorce her husband.
Inspector Balasaheb Patil, the case’s defendant, asked the woman to reconcile with her husband, and when she refused and wanted to live on her own, he had sent her to a rehabilitation centre. She also claimed that the inspector held her in jail against her will, preventing her from interacting with the outside world, particularly with the man she loves.
“The woman had not requested shelter in the first place and had been sent to the rehabilitation centre since she refused to live with her husband. The woman was also denied access to the outside world despite multiple requests and was held in illegal detention for six months. This shows a lack of humanity and sensitivity on the side of the police inspector,” the court stated.
The court ordered that the inspector and rehabilitation centre pay the fine to the court, and that the registrar deposit the money in the name of the girl child as a fixed amount, with the petitioner having the option to take the interest.
