Gujarat HC to take up Bulgarian woman’s plea seeking rape FIR against pharma firm CMD

Source: TheIndianExpress

An Ahmedabad rural magistrate court had rejected her complaint stating she had failed to provide any evidence for her allegations.

At a hearing before the high court on October 13, the presiding judge refused to hear the matter urgently and suggested the woman approach the sessions court with a revision application against the magistrate court’s order.

The Gujarat High Court is due to take up on December 4 a petition moved by a Bulgarian woman seeking the registration of an FIR for rape and other offences against the chairman and managing director of a multinational pharmaceuticals company based in Ahmedabad.

The 27-year old woman moved an Ahmedabad rural magistrate court in July with a private complaint making allegations of rape, criminal assault, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation against the CMD and another employee of the company. It was rejected in October, following which the woman moved the high court.

Before moving the magistrate court, the woman had approached the Navrangpura, Sola and Mahila police stations with a complaint alleging rape and sexual harassment.

As per the woman’s complaint, she was hired as a flight attendant and a personal assistant for the CMD in August 2022, following which she landed in India on November 24, 2022, and was housed near his home to work as his “butler personal assistant”. The woman alleged that she was asked to accompany the CMD on an Udaipur trip in February, and days later, to a trip to Jammu. On their way back on a flight, she was allegedly put in an “uncomfortable situation” and subsequently sexually harassed by the CMD.

The magistrate court had ordered an inquiry into the woman’s complaint and sought an action-taken report from police. The inspector of the Sola police station submitted that the woman, after giving her complaints to various police stations, had submitted in a notarised affidavit dated April 20, 2023, that she wanted to withdraw her complaints, that she had no grievances against the company or its staff and that the company could take legal action against her if she complained again in the future.

However in May, she again filed a complaint before the Sola police station making similar allegations, and thus, the police inspector submitted before the magistrate court that “there is no material in her complaints and thus nothing remains to be done about the complaint”.

The magistrate court, while rejecting her complaint in October, said that despite a magisterial inquiry done under Code of Criminal Procedure section 202, the woman had failed to provide any evidence for the allegations she had made. It held that the complaint was not maintainable considering that the police had conducted a proper inquiry into the matter. The magistrate also took an adverse view of the woman for not disclosing upfront the affidavit submitted to the police seeking withdrawal of her earlier complaints.

At a hearing before the high court on October 13, the presiding judge refused to hear the matter urgently and suggested the woman approach the sessions court with a revision application against the magistrate court’s order.

On November 2, the public prosecutor submitted before the high court that another woman had approached the court in June “principally with some service disputes”. Court records indicate that the woman was seeking a direction to register an FIR against the CMD along with three other employees for the offences of rape, sexual assault, criminal conspiracy, human trafficking and sexual slavery.

The woman had also sought the registration of an FIR under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act against the CMD. She said she had been sexually harassed and was acting as a whistleblower to provide information about repeated rapes of multiple women at the CMD’s home and several other places.

A high court order of July 28 said, “The applicant states that she was sexually harassed at multiple instances and raped repeatedly…In the application, the applicant has stated about certain incidents alleging harassment as also names of other other women who are victims of rape and sexual harassment. The allegations levelled are of human trafficking and sexual slavery.”

The court then ordered that statements of the victims be recorded by a female judicial magistrate under CrPC section 164 (as confessional statements) and sought a report about it in a sealed cover. Upon perusing the report, the court, however, ruled that it “does not find any case” to direct the registration of an FIR. It further observed that the “applicant, being an employee, can move the Internal Complaints Committee with regard to the allegations of sexual harassment at work place”.