Kerala High Court Dismisses Plea Seeking Action Against Magistrate, Says Inadvertent Mistake Cannot Lead To Prosecution Under S.228A IPC

Dismissing the writ appeal, the Division Bench comprising Chief Justice A.J. Desai and V.G. Arun observed that an inadvertent mistake on the part of the Magistrate cannot lead to prosecution under Section 228A IPC.

“we are in agreement with the observations, since the learned Single Judge has issued specific directions for future guidance, which are detailed in paragraph 20 extracted above. As found by the learned Single Judge, the inadvertent mistakes on the part of the Magistrate cannot lead to action under Section 228 of IPC. For the above mentioned reasons, the writ appeal is dismissed.”

The appellant had approached the Court against the judgment passed in a writ petition seeking for an action against the Magistrate under Section 228A IPC. Section 228-A IPC relates to disclosing the identity of the victim of certain offences under Section 376 IPC etc. and is an offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment and a fine.

The Counsel for the appellant contended that the Magistrate ought to have anonymized the name and address of the complainant/victim in the order and sought an action against the Magistrate.

The Counsel appearing on behalf of the High Court contended that the writ petition was disposed of by taking sufficient consideration of the allegations raised by the complainant/ victim.

The single judge had held that judicial officers are protected under the Judges (Protection) Act, 1985 from any action initiated qua an act, thing or word committed, done or spoken by him/her during the discharge of their judicial functions and that an action will not lie under Section 228A IPC. It also stated that cause titles of judgments were prepared by court officers and only the judgments were corrected and verified by judicial officers.

Further, while disposing of the writ petition, the Court also directed that judicial officers have to be cautious about anonymizing the name and details of the victim/complainant at the inception of the case itself. It also directed the registry to circulate its order to all judicial officers and to the Director of the Kerala Judicial Academy for future guidance.

The Division Bench noted that “It is true that the name and address of the appellant was not masked in the order.”

However, on perusing the judgment passed in the writ petition, the Division Bench observed that the single judge has issued specific directions for future guidance for the prevention of such inadvertent omissions on the part of the Magistrate.

Accordingly, the Court dismissed the writ appeal.

Counsel for the appellant: Advocates V Sethunath, Lakshminarayan R, Sreeganesh U, Thomas Abraham, V.R.Manoranjan

Counsel for the respondents: Senior Advocate B G Harindranath, Senior Government Pleader V Tekchand

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Ker) 28

Case title: XXX v State of Kerala

Case number: WA NO. 29 OF 2024

Click Here To Read/Download The Judgment