Karnataka High Court quashes case against man who posed as garbage lifter to meet minor daughter [Read Order]

Ever heard of parents posing as garbage lifters to meet their children during visitation hours? Once such case came up before the Karnataka High Court recently. 
 

The Court recently quashed a criminal case against a man who was charged of criminal trespass and intimidation for trying to visit his daughter by entering the apartment, posing as a garbage lifter. 
 

The husband had valid visitation right on the day that he wanted to visit the daughter. Therefore, he had a right in law by an order of the competent Court, to visit the daughter. He seeks to visit the child. It is rescheduled by the wife to the next Saturday. The husband lost the opportunity of looking at the daughter on 20-08-2022. He, therefore, enters into a garbage van and meets the daughter as if he is one amongst the people who would enter the house to lift the garbage. This is the anxiety of the father to meet the daughter. This is dubbed by the wife to be a criminal trespass into the house with a criminal intent to intimidate the daughter, Justice M Nagaprasanna noted in the order. 
 

After the estranged couples marriage turned sour, their marriage was dissolved by a family court in on mutual consent under Section 13(B) of the Hindu Marriage Act. The petitioner husband was granted visitation rights to meet their daughter every Saturday from 3 pm to 5 pm, either at the wifes residence or at a neutral place. Later, the family shifted to Bengaluru and the daughter has been with the wife since September 2020.
 

The husband's meeting with the daughter was then rescheduled for August 27. Upon arriving at the apartment complex, he made three attempts to enter by using an app Mygate to register his name at the gate; each time, the authorization was refused. Fearing he would not see his daughter until the following week, he entered the apartment on the pretence of needing to park his car before evading the guards. When security guards chased him, he got into the garbage van at the tailgate where the garbage is placed and pretended to be guarding the garbage. He reached the wifes house along with garbage collectors, met the daughter and came back. The wife registered the crime after 15 days of the incident, alleging that their daughter went into trauma after seeing her father suddenly.
 

But the Court couldnt see reason with this argument. Further, the Court noted that the alleged intimidation leads to two more offences being added i.e., Sections 504 and 506 of the IPC. On this, the Court opined that all the offences are loosely laid against the petitioner. 
 

If any further investigation is permitted to continue, it would become, on the face of it, an abuse of the process of law and misuse of the provisions of law by the wife against the husband to settle her scores. Therefore, to avoid patent injustice and ultimate miscarriage of justice, I deem it appropriate to exercise my jurisdiction under Section 482 of the CrPC and obliterate the proceedings against the petitioner, the Court said before quashing the criminal case against the criminal case against the petitioner.

[Read Order]