FIR quashed against ex-MLA over remark about minister; Karnataka High Court says party worker who heard it was not the aggrieved person

The complainant, a Congress party worker, alleged that during a 2024 election campaign, the petitioner made a derogatory statement about Lakshmi R. Hebbalkar, then Minister for Women and Child Welfare and a Congress candidate.

The statement was reported as suggesting that Hebbalkar would need sleeping pills or an extra peg to sleep that night.

The complainant filed a complaint, resulting in Crime No. 69/2024 against the petitioner under Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The petitioner sought to quash the complaint and FIR under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, corresponding to Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.

The complainant was served but did not appear.

1. Whether the complaint’s allegations, taken at face value, disclosed the ingredients of an offence under Section 509 IPC.

2. Whether the complainant, who was not the person against whom the statement was allegedly made, could maintain the complaint on the facts alleged.

Section 509 IPC criminalises words, gestures, or acts intended to insult a woman’s modesty.

The court relied on Madhushree Datta v. State, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 165, for the principles that the alleged conduct must disclose the requisite intention or knowledge to insult the woman’s modesty, assessed in context, and that a bare allegation of “filthy language” without contextual particulars or accompanying conduct may not suffice.

It also referred to State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal, 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335, which permits quashing where, among other circumstances, the allegations—even if accepted in their entirety—do not prima facie constitute an offence.

The petition was considered under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC, now Section 528 BNSS.

The alleged statement was directed at Hebbalkar, not the complainant, and the complainant’s case was that she had heard the statement about her party leader.

The court held that the complainant had not herself been subjected to the alleged insult and that the statement, in the circumstances presented, did not disclose the necessary ingredients of Section 509 IPC.

Applying Madhushree Datta, the court concluded that the alleged words did not establish the requisite intention to insult the modesty of the complainant; applying Bhajan Lal, it found that continuation of the investigation would be improper because the complaint, taken at face value, disclosed no offence under Section 509 IPC.