* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI % Reserved on: 12^th January, 2026 Pronounced on:01^st April, 2026 + W.P.(CRL) 1622/2021 & CRL.M.A. 13581/2021 RANJIT KAUR W/o Sh. S.S. Chawla, R/o A-8/40, 2^nd Floor, Rana Pratap Singh, New Delhi. .....Petitioner Through: Mr. N. Hariharan, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Vaibhav Sharma, Ms. Urvashi Sharma and Mr. Vinayak Gautam Advocates.

versus

1. STATE N.C.T. OF DELHI

2. DR. NEELAM Professor, Hindi Department Laxmi Bai College, DU, Delhi ....Respondents Through: Ms. Rupali Bandhopadhya, ASC for State with ACP Garima Tiwari, Insp. Yashwant and SI Sonal Raj, P.S.:

Bharat Nagar.

Ms. Pooja Roy, Advocate for R-2.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE NEENA BANSAL KRISHNA

J U D G M E N T

NEENA BANSAL KRISHNA, J.

1. Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as “Cr.P.C.”) has been filed on behalf of the Petitioner, Ranjit Kaur seeking quashing of FIR No. 0512/2021 under Sections 323/504 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereinafter referred to as “IPC”) and Section 3 of The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (hereinafter referred to as “SC/ST Act”), P.S. Bharat Nagar, Delhi and all the proceedings emanating therefrom.

2. The Petitioner states that she is an Associate Professor in-Charge of the Hindi Department, Lakshmibai College, Delhi, and is a law-abiding citizen having clean antecedents. The Complainant also happens to be the Associate Professor, in the same College. A Departmental Meeting of the Teachers was held on 16.08.2021, in relation to preparations regarding the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (“NAAC”). The Minutes of the Meeting were prepared, which were required to be signed by the respective members who had participated in the meeting.

3. The Minutes were thus, circulated to each member for their respective signatures, but when it came to the Respondent No.2/Complainant, Dr. Neelam to sign, she stated that she would read them at her ease, which may take one to two hours, and she would sign only thereafter.

4. The Petitioner requested the Complainant to read and sign the same, as the Minutes of the Meeting hardly comprised of four lines, and the website updates in relation to NAAC was required to be done, and the same could not be unnecessarily delayed. The Petitioner asked the Complainant to give back the Register, as she started to take it along with her. The Petitioner tried to take the register back, on which the Complainant pulled her hair, and in the process, a page of the Register was torn by the Complainant. The Petitioner made a Complaint to the Principal, a copy of which was annexed with the plaint.

5. It was further stated that the Complainant also made a hand-written Complaint to the Principal on the day of the alleged incident, i.e., 16.08.2021, which was the first version placed before the Principal and was written by the Complainant. In this Complaint, there was not a whisper about any casteist remark being made or her being humiliated as a member of the Scheduled Caste (“SC”), or of any ill-treatment because she belonged to the SC community.

6. The Complainant also preferred a Complaint on the same day, i.e., 16.08.2021 in the P.S. Bharat Nagar, Delhi. This Complaint was also in the handwriting of the Complainant and had no allegation whatsoever of any sort of humiliation by the Petitioner, or any incident in regard to her being a member of SC/ST community. As per her own Complaint, there was no allegation of her being subjected to any atrocity.

7. The Complainant thereafter, preferred a second Complaint before the Principal on 17.08.2021, which was a complete improvement of the earlier story, given by her in writing via Complaint to the Principal on the previous day. The casteist remarks were deliberately mentioned in an afterthought fashion in the second Complaint, which shows that the Complaint was manifestly attended with mala fides and had been i