The Supreme Court granted a permanent stay on the arrest of a techie after he appeared before the Bengaluru police from Finland and joined the investigation in a rape case lodged by a woman, who claimed to be his former colleague.
A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul took note of the submission by the Karnataka government counsel that the accused, Arjun P Kamath, joined the investigation after the top court stayed his arrest on February 21 and the charge sheet was filed. The counsel also said that a supplementary charge sheet would be filed soon.
Advocate K V Muthu Kumar, representing the petitioner, submitted that Kamath would join the proceedings before the trial court and remain present as and when required unless exempted from personal appearance as he was working and residing in Finland.
“The order against the stay of the arrest of the petitioner is liable to be made absolute. In case of failure to comply with the directions, the order would be liable to be recalled,” the bench said.
The top court had stayed the arrest of the techie from Bengaluru after he contended that the rape case was lodged in 2016 by the woman for the offence allegedly committed in 2012.
Kamath said the FIR, lodged by the Koramangala police in 2016, was abuse and misuse of the rape law.
The woman claimed that Kamath forcibly established a physical relationship with her and reneged on the promise of marriage.
Kamath approached the court with a special leave petition, against the Karnataka High Court’s order of July 20, 2017, which rejected his plea for anticipatory bail.
In the complaint with the Koramangala police, the woman said that she and the 30-year-old accused worked with the Nokia–Siemens company.
In August 2009, he proposed to her and established a physical relationship with her at his friend’s place in Koramangala. The relationship continued until November 2011 when he left for Finland, after which she could not contact him. But in October 2016, Kamath’s friend informed her that he would not be able to marry her.
However, the petitioner denied the allegations. Kamath, for his part, said he has been working with the Ericsson company in Finland since 2011, and there was no possibility of him having any physical relationship with her.