A Mumbai court on Friday refused to take cognisance of “MeToo” allegations levelled against veteran actor Nana Patekar by his co-star Tanushree Dutta in 2018 after observing the complaint was filed “beyond the period of limitation” without explaining reason for delay.
In her complaint filed in October that year, Dutta had accused Patekar and three others of harassing and misbehaving with her in 2008 while shooting a song on the sets of the film “Horn Ok Pleasss”. The issue hit national headlines and had sparked the #MeToo movement on social media. The police, in 2019, filed its final report before a magistrate court stating that its probe did not find anything incriminating against any of the accused. The FIR was found to be false, the police further said in its report. In legal terms such a report is called a ‘B-summary’.
At the time, Dutta had filed a protest petition urging the court to reject the B-summary. She urged the court to order further probe into her complaint. Judicial Magistrate First Class (Andheri) NV Bansal said Dutta filed an FIR in 2018 under Indian Penal Code sections 354 and 509 over an incident that allegedly occurred on March 23, 2008. Both the offences have a limitation of three years as per provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the magistrate said.
The purpose of the prescribing period of limitation is to put pressure on the organs of criminal prosecution to make every effort to ensure detection and punishment of the crime quickly, the court observed. No application for condonation of delay has been filed either by the prosecution or the informant to let the court know the reasons for delay, the order said. Thus, there is “no reason before me to take cognizance after a long lapse of more than 7 years after expiry of the period of limitation”, the magistrate said. “If such a huge delay is condoned without any sufficient cause then it will be against the principle of equity and true spirit of law,” the magistrate said while concluding that alleged incident “is not within limitation and court is barred to take the cognizance of the same”.
“The alleged first incidence cannot be said to be false nor can be said as true” as the court has not dealt with the facts of the alleged incident, it added. The magistrate disposed of the B Summary report saying it “cannot be dealt with due to bar of taking cognizance”.