'Decade-old saga of deceit': Karnataka High Court orders police to circulate details of woman who filed cases against 10 ex-husbands, partners

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has directed the state police chief to digitally circulate the details of a woman who has been filing criminal cases against her former husbands and partners for the past decade. 

The court issued the directive while quashing the criminal proceedings against P K Vivek, a coffee planter from Sakleshpur, Hassan district, and his family members. The coffee planter claimed to be the victim of the 10th complaint lodged by the woman named Deepika. 

"The police station before whom this complainant would seek to register a crime shall not register the same without conducting any appropriate preliminary enquiry. This is to curb, if not stop, wanton registration of crimes against several men. Ten have been seen, it is only to stop the eleventh," Justice M Nagaprasanna said. 

In the case at hand, Vivek met Deepika on August 28, 2022, at Mysuru's Hotel Lalit Mahal Palace regarding a business transaction. However, within a month into the relationship, she filed two complaints against him.

Vivek's petition presented documents showing that Deepika had lodged similar criminal cases against several men in the last decade. 

The court observed that the entire narration mentioned in Deepika’s complaint against Vivek and his family occurred over a 25-day period, from August 28 to September 22, 2022. 

Deepika was absent throughout the high court proceedings. The court also noted that she had filed complaints against different men, describing them as husbands or accusing them of rape on the promise of marriage. 

After perusing documents related to other cases, the court found that she had failed to appear in court to provide evidence, resulting in acquittal. 

"The intention is clear. It was only to harass those persons who had nothing to do with the complainant. More than 10 men have fallen prey to the antics and tactics of the complainant, bordering on a honey trap character of the complainant, by way of the aforesaid modus operandi. It is, therefore, I consider the act of the second respondent - complainant to be "a decade-old saga of deceit" not against one, but against many," Justice Nagaprasanna said. 

The court further noted: "In that light, as also the glaring facts narrated therein above and the repetitive persistence of the complainant in registering frivolous cases at every point in time, I deem it appropriate to direct the Director General of Police and Inspector General of Police to communicate to all the police stations all the details of the complainant to be available on the database, so that they could be cautious when the complainant would want to register a crime against any other man."