HC quashes plaint against ex-min in unnatural sex case

BHOPAL/JABALPUR: In a relief to former finance minister in Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet, Raghavji, the MP high court has quashed the FIR registered against him under section 377 of the IPC, terming the complaint 'malicious' and saying that the complainant indulged in 'unnatural sex' with him with consent.
With this, the HC observed, all subsequent proceedings pursuant to the FIR, will "automatically come to an end".The trial that was on in a Bhopal district court has now been scrapped. "I find that the complaint was made after (being) hand-in-glove with the leaders of rival parties," Justice Sanjay Dwivedi said in his order.
Plaint coated with ill-motive, made to belittle image: HC
The case against the former minister was registered on a complaint by Rajkumar Dangi, who lived in the official bungalow of the minister in Char Imli. After leaving the house, he filed a complaint in 2013 against the minister and produced a CD, showing the minister in a sexual act with him and another person.
The complaint, lodged in election year, brought politics in the state to a boil and Raghavji had to resign. His political career ended abruptly.
The trial went on for nearly a decade. On Thursday, Justice Sanjay Dwivedi said, "I am of the opinion that the complaint is sugarcoated with ill-motive, made to belittle the image in society and cast a stigma on the name of a high-up-place person, who also holds an important portfolio in the state of MP. For almost three years, the complainant remained reticent and astoundingly it is only after he left the petitioner's house, he felt humiliated that he made the complaint."
"Further, I find that the complaint was made after (being) hand-in-glove with the leaders of rival parties and therefore it is nothing but the assimilation of personal and political antipathies, more precisely, a politically-oriented-animosity, which makes the petitioner's prosecution malicious," the judge observed.
The judgment pointed out that the complainant's admission that he planned and prepared the CD casts doubts on his demeanour and "suggests that he was anyhow bent upon to collect material against the petitioner so that it can be used against him" at some point of time. Moreover, the complainant is not specific about the threat given to him, Justice Dwivedi said.
The conduct of the complainant, as described by his father, indicates that the proceeding against the petitioner by the complainant is "maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance on the accused and with a view to spite him due to private and personal grudge", the judgment says.
"In such circumstances, the prosecution cannot be allowed to continue. As a result, finding no offence under Section 377 of IPC is made out as it is a case of consent and further that the prosecution of the petitioner is malicious. Thus, the FIR registered at Habibganj police station... is hereby quashed". TNN