The Kerala High Court on Friday quashed the criminal proceedings initiated against M.A. Vaheed, Dominic Presentation, and K. Sivadasan Nair, former United Democratic Front (UDF) legislators, for wrongfully restraining and allegedly outraging the modesty of two Left Democratic Front women legislators during the ruckus in the Assembly in 2015.

The criminal proceedings were initiated on complaints by former LDF legislators K.K. Lathika and Jameela Prakasham by the Thiruvananthapuram First Class Judicial Magistrate Court-III.

Justice P.V. Kunhikrishnan, while allowing the petitions by the UDF leaders challenging the criminal proceedings, observed that the complaints in these cases did not disclose the essential ingredients of the offences under Section 341 (wrongful restraint) and 354 (assault or use of criminal force against a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which were alleged against the accused.

The court observed that the incident in this case happened inside the Assembly where the complainants tried to obstruct the then Finance Minister K.M. Mani from presenting the Budget.

At that time, when the complainants were proceeding to obstruct the Minister, the petitioners obstructed them. In such a situation, it cannot be said that there was an intention to outrage modesty of the complainants, but the intention of the petitioners was to see that the Finance Minister presented the Budget, which was his constitutional duty.

.

The complainants and other LDF MLAs were admittedly going to obstruct the Minister from presenting the Budget as per a decision of the LDF to protest against the presentation of the Budget.

The court pointed out that Section 341 of the IPC was not attracted in the facts and circumstances of the case. Even if the petitioners obstructed the complainants from proceeding in the direction from which the then Finance Minister was coming to present the Budget, the complainants had no right to proceed in that way because the Minister was doing his constitutional duty.

If a Finance Minister decided to present the Budget, even if he was an accused in a corruption case, nobody could restrain him, but of course there could be protests in a democratic manner, the court said.