The High Court of Karnataka quashed a criminal case of alleged trespass registered against a man who entered an apartment complex posing as a garbage collector to meet his eight-year-old daughter after his divorced wife denied permission to enter the complex despite him having weekly visitation rights granted by a court.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while allowing a petition filed by Anupam, who had questioned the legality of the case registered against him by the Bengaluru city police based on his former wife’s complaint.
Mutual agreement
The petitioner and his wife terminated their marriage with mutual consent in 2020 at a family court in Delhi. As per mutual agreement, the court had granted the child’s custody to the mother and the petitioner was granted a permanent right to visit daughter every Saturday between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. at the mother’s house or at neutral places like an activity zone, mall, etc.
Petitioner’s former wife had sent him an email on August 19, 2022 (Friday), postponing visitation scheduled for August 20 (Saturday) to August 27. Though the petitioner took note of the mail, he did not accept it and went to meet his daughter in the apartment.
He had gained entry into the apartment complex in the guise of parking the vehicle, but when the security personnel came in search of him, he got into the tailgate of the apartment’s garbage vehicle. He then entered the apartment building posing as garbage collector and attempted to meet his daughter in the flat, and later left the apartment.
What complaint said
His former wife lodged a complaint against him on September 7, 2022, alleging that he trespassed into the apartment when she was not in the apartment. Stating that her daughter went into trauma on suddenly seeing the petitioner and the girl had locked herself inside bathroom for two hours, it was complained that the petitioner had intimidated the daughter.
However, the High Court found that the complaint lacks ingredients for the offences of either trespass or criminal intimidation as the petitioner had a valid visitation right to meet his daughter.
Also, the High Court described the petitioner’s conduct as the “anxiety of a father” to meet the daughter as he would have to wait for another week to see the daughter and this was dubbed as a criminal act by the former wife. The court also took note of the petitioner’s claim that his former wife had, on many occasions earlier too breached his visitation right.
