Khushi Bajpai
Published on: 20 August, 2022 at 17:02 IST
On Friday, the Kerala High Court denied Swapna Suresh’s two petitions asking for the FIR against her to be dropped against MLA K.T. Jaleel, the chief minister, Pinar Ayi Vijayan, and the government for allegedly spreading false information.
While rejecting her request to have the FIR quashed, the Justice Ziyad Rahman A.A. bench made the observation that the FIR’s contents are sufficient to undertake an investigation into the offence under Section 153 IPC.
The principal suspect in the infamous gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh, said that a number of people in positions of authority, including the chief minister, his wife, his daughter, K.T. Jaleel, and many others, were involved in smuggling activities.
The current FIR was filed in response to claims made by Swapna, who claimed that she had colluded with former MLA PC George, lied before the magistrate and circulated false information to the media, inciting the public to riot.
The FIR cited violations of Sections 153 of the Indian Penal Code (wantonly offering provocation with an intent to provoke disturbances) and 12 B (criminal conspiracy).
The court noted that there are adequate elements for generating the claimed offences against her and that there are no legitimate explanations for using the high court’s authority under section 482 CrPC in either case, citing the criteria outlined by the top court.
The court dismissed the criminal miscellaneous cases since it could not find any merit in them.
When dismissing the cases, the court noted that the conclusions in this order were made only to determine whether the petitioner had established a claim to use the high court’s authority to quash the FIRs under Section 482 CrPC, and under no circumstances could the observations have caused the petitioner to be prejudiced in bringing a challenging claim.