Kerala High Court Stays Criminal Proceedings Against Disabled Couple Accused Of Encroaching Neighbour's Property, Damaging Compound Wall

The Kerala High Court on Thursday stayed the criminal proceedings initiated against a differently abled couple and their senior citizen father, who had been alleged to have encroached upon the property of their neighbour and caused damage to the compound wall on the property. 

Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan V. stayed the proceedings against the accused petitioners for a period of one month. 

It has been alleged that the 2nd and 3rd petitioners in this case (the husband and father of the couple respectively), had encroached upon the property of the de facto complainant, who is their neighbour, and caused damage to the compound wall thereto resulting in some monetary loss for the latter. 

The plea moved through Advocate S. Nikhil Sankar averred that no such incident had occurred. It was submitted that there were some civil disputes between the 1st (petitioner-wife) and 3rd petitioner (petitioner-husband) with the de facto complainant over encroachment committed by him on the property of the petitioners. It was added that a suit had been filed in this regard before the Munsiff Court at Thiruvananthapuram arraying the de facto complainant as the 2nd defendant. 

"...the above proceedings has been launched by the 2nd respondent (the de facto complainant) suppressing material facts as a counterblast to the pending civil disputes between the parties. Even assuming the nature of allegations raised, the same can only be deemed to have realms of a pure civil dispute and has no sum and substance to attract any of the ingredients of the offences alleged," the plea states. 

The petitioners further submitted that the police is not empowered to interfere in any case involving personal civil disputes between parties. It was thus claimed that the action of the 1st respondent police on the behest of the 2nd respondent to cause the District Survey Superintendent, Thiruvananthapuram to submit her property documents in a purely civil dispute falls foul of law and ought to be set aside. 

The petitioners have thus sought the FIR and further proceedings in the case to be quashed on these grounds.  

Case Title: Anjitha C.P. & Ors. v. State of Kerala & Anr.