Observing that the dear life of a 35-year-old man, who belonged to the LGBT group, was misplaced owing to remarks of his sexual orientation, the High Court of Karnataka refused to quash, at this early stage of the probe, a legal case registered against three of his colleagues for alleged abetment of suicide.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna handed the order whereas rejecting petitions filed by Deputy General Manager (Marketing) Malathy S.B., Vice-President (Human Resources) Kumar Suraj, and Manager (Marketing) Nitish Kumar, at Lifestyle International Private Limited, Bengaluru.
The deceased, Vivek Raj, was a Manager (Visual Merchandise) in Lifestyle International. He had ended his life in his condominium in Bengaluru on June 3 after lodging a criticism against the petitioners accusing them of harassing him on the office as a result of he belongs to the Dalit group.
At the time of registering the case, police booked the accused-petitioners underneath provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. However, the High Court had stayed additional proceedings on this case.
After the dying of Vivek Raj, police registered one other FIR primarily based on a criticism lodged by his father. In the second FIR, the accused-petitioners had been booked underneath Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.
At this level, the accused-petitioners filed a petition in search of a keep on the investigation.
Pointing out that the petitioners had filed the petition inside three days of registration of FIR underneath Section 306, the court docket mentioned that the dispute across the info surrounding the function of the petitioners within the dying of Vivek Raj necessitates an investigation on the very least. Hence, the court docket refused to quash the FIR, because the investigation was on the preliminary stage.
Meanwhile, the court docket noticed, “The deceased belonged to the LGBT community. The sensitivity of them being ostracised pervades in their psyche. Therefore, such people must be treated with all love and affection, and not point at the infirmity that they have no control of. If every citizen would treat such citizens with all love and care, as is done to a normal human, precious lives would not be lost.”
The court docket additionally mentioned, “It is necessary that every one of us introspect on this issue. After all, every one of them are human beings, and all are worthy of equality.”
Based on the contents of a collection of emails addressed by Vivek Raj to his higher-ups from February until June 2023, the court docket famous that he was being allegedly handled inappropriately as he belonged to the LGBT group, and he was repeatedly questioned on his sexuality by some of his colleagues.
While dismissing the petition, the court docket mentioned that it’s not acceptable to quash the FIR on the preliminary stage, as a probe is important to verify abetment.
