The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court recently determined that trailing a woman on a bicycle, verbally abusing her, and pushing her a couple of times might be deemed as “annoying” behavior but does not qualify as an offense under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The court emphasized that the woman did not specify whether the accused engaged in inappropriate touching or targeted a particular body part, causing embarrassment.
“In relation to the act of following and verbally abusing P.W. 1 (the victim), it cannot be deemed as capable of shocking the sense of decency of a woman. While the act may be considered annoying, it certainly does not reach the threshold of shocking a woman’s sense of decency,” the court concluded.
The case relates to an incident where the complainant, a college student, alleged that Ismail followed her on a bicycle while she was going to the market and pushed her. She claimed that he had abused and followed her on prior occasions as well.
Justice Pansare referred to the Supreme Court judgment in Raju Pandurang Mahale v. State of Maharashtra which laid down that the ingredients of Section 354 IPC are – the assault must be on a woman, the accused must have used criminal force on her, and the criminal force must have been used intending to outrage her modesty.
The Court noted that the complainant did not state which part of her body was touched inappropriately by the accused. She only stated that he pushed her while riding a bicycle.
“Merely because the applicant has on bicycle given a push to the complainant, to my mind cannot be said to be an act which is capable of shocking the sense of decency of the complainant. The act may be offensive or annoying but cannot be said to be compromising the decency of a woman,” Justice Pansare observed.
The court maintained that aside from the complainant’s testimony, there existed no additional evidence to establish the culpability of the accused. It asserted that her statement alone did not meet the criteria for invoking Section 354 of the IPC, which mandates that the act must be of a nature capable of shocking a woman’s sense of decency.
Allowing the revision application, Justice Pansare set aside the orders passed by the lower courts convicting and sentencing Ismail under Section 354 IPC and acquitted him of the charge.
The court observed that in dismissing the appeal, the Sessions Court had mistakenly exercised its authority by suspending the sentence, a power it did not possess. As Ismail was acquitted, his plea for the suspension of the sentence became irrelevant
