Bombay HC rejects plea to reopen rape case against JSW MD

The Bombay High Court, last week, dismissed a plea by a 32-year-old woman seeking the reopening of a rape and criminal intimidation case against JSW Group chairman and managing director Sajjan Jindal. Last year, a Magistrate's court accepted a police closure report that termed her allegations untrue.

The Bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam A Ankhad on December 24 rejected the woman’s criminal writ petition challenging the April 24, 2024, order of the Metropolitan Magistrate, Bandra, which had accepted the closure report of the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police station.

The FIR had invoked Sections 376 (rape), 354 (outraging modesty) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code against Jindal, who had denied the accusations as false and baseless. The closure report recorded that the complaint was filed after a considerable delay and that the woman did not appear to record her statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure despite having several opportunities to do so.  The investigating officer also placed on record hotel and travel details to state that Jindal was not present at Taj Lands End, Bandra or at other places mentioned in the FIR on the relevant dates. The Magistrate granted the police request to close the case, relying on this material and an affidavit in which the complainant expressed her inability to pursue the case and raised no objection to the closure report filed by the police.

The woman approached the High Court seeking to set aside the Magistrate’s order, reopen the investigation and transfer the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or a court-monitored Special Investigation Team. She also sought a direction to the police to file a charge sheet within three months. The petitioner alleged that Jindal is a “powerful man with political support” and that the police had failed to protect her interests after registration of the FIR.

The High Court rejected the challenge, holding that the scope of interference was limited once the complainant had stated her inability to pursue the case and had raised no objection to the closure report filed by the police. “The Magistrate who deals with the police report cannot compel the police to change his opinion. A finding of fact recorded in the police report could not have been doubted by the Magistrate when the prosecutrix herself made a statement that she did not want to contest the matter,” said the Bench.

The Bench also noted that the petitioner is a highly educated medical professional. It described her as a multi-talented young woman who made a conscious choice in her dealings with the accused. “She doesn’t allege that the accused person on some false pretext took her to the washroom... all that the petitioner says is that the accused person told her a sob story of his marital life and promised that they would live as husband and wife in some other country. But then the petitioner herself says that she was not agreeable to such a proposal.

In these circumstances, the petitioner must be held to have made a conscious and informed choice... Some of the WhatsApp chats produced by her on record may give an impression that she was passionate about the accused person,” said the HC order.