Tamil Nadu Govt Seeks Recall Of Madras High Court's Order Quashing Sexual Harassment Case Against Godman Shivshankar Baba

Nearly two weeks after a case of sexual harassment was quashed against the self-styled godman Shiv Shankar Baba, the Tamil Nadu government has approached the Madras High Court seeking recall of the decision.

Additional Public Prosecutor A Damodaran on Friday made a mentioning before the bench of Justice RN Manjula for an urgent hearing. The bench agreed to hear the matter and decided to take it up on Monday.

On October 17, the bench had allowed a questioning petition filed by Baba after observing that no application to condone the delay was filed under Section 473 of CrPC. The offense was alleged to have been committed in 2010-2011, but the FIR was registered in 2021. Though the court found the allegations made by the complainant to be serious in nature, it said that in the absence of an application to condone the delay, the prosecution was time-barred.

Seeking reconsideration of the decision, the State has submitted that the criminal proceedings could not have been quashed merely in the absence of application to condone delay as in a case initiated through a police report, the cognizance is only taken when the Magistrate applies his mind to the police report forwarded to him.

In the present case, there was no police report forwarded nor such an application of mind from the Magistrate. Thus, no cognizance can be said to have been taken when only the notice of FIR being lodged was forwarded to the concerned Magistrate.

It has also been argued that no notice was issued to the de facto complainant and as per the precedents laid down by the Supreme Court and the High Courts, the complainant should have been heard before allowing the quashing petition. It was also submitted that the bar of limitation by itself could not have been the only ground to quash the criminal proceeding. 

The State has also contended that it was an extraordinary case as the accused Baba had not only committed sexual offence against the complainant "but also against six innocent school students and another parent". It was the habit of the accused to target innocent children who were economically weak or children of single parents and to abuse them, the prosecution has said.

Thus, the State sought for recalling of the October 17 order by which Baba's petition for quashing of prosecution was allowed.