BENGALURU: Coming to the rescue of a man booked under section 370 of the IPC (trafficking of persons) by KIA police in July 2019, the high court has quashed the pending proceedings against him.
Proceedings against Rajkumar, a resident of Amritsar, Punjab, were pending before the JMFC court in Devanahalli. The case of the prosecution was that on July 20, 2019, when the assistant immigration officer at KIA was on duty in the departure wing, he noticed three Indians intending to travel to Kuala Lumpur by an Indigo flight. They were checked and questioned.
It came to light that they were all travelling in a group and were accompanied by another passenger (Rajkumar). On further questioning, the passengers revealed they were being taken to Kuala Lumpur for employment purpose on tourist visas.
They also said Rajkumar was introduced to them by an agent named Kiran, based in Amritsar. Some of the group members indicated they had paid money to Rajkumar and others. While one of them, Mankaran Singh, claimed to have paid Rs 30,000 in cash to Rajkumar at his residence, Ranjit Singh said he had transferred Rs 50,000 into the account of one Sheetal Vohra on July 18, 2019. Another person, Davinder Singh, claimed to have transferred Rs 20,000 to one Gurbhej Singh on July 15, 2019, and Rs 30,000 in cash to Kiran on July 18, 2019.
Based on this, a complaint was registered against the petitioner. Later, a chargesheet was filed under section 370.
Rajkumar challenged both the complaint and the resultant court proceedings, contending there is nothing against him to proceed under section 370. Allowing this, justice M Nagaprasanna pointed out that the soul of section 370 is exploitation and in the absence of any such allegation by any of the victims, the petitioner cannot be prosecuted under the provision.
The judge also noted that the complaint, investigation and wavering statements of the persons who accompanied the petitioner had created suspicion in the mind of the immigration officer at the airport. “The suspicion was on account of the statement on handing over some cash to the petitioner by the people who accompanied him. This cannot, in my considered view, be enough circumstance to prosecute the petitioner for human trafficking. If any further proceedings are permitted in this case, it would become an abuse of the process of law and result in miscarriage of justice,” he said.
