THE HON'BLE SMT. JUSTICE TIRUMALA DEVI EADA CRIMINAL PETITION No.14145 OF 2025

ORDER:

This Criminal Petition is filed by the petitioners-accused Nos.1 and 2 seeking to quash the proceedings against them in Crime No.369 of 2025 of O.U. City Police Station, Hyderabad, registered for the offences under Sections 79, 351(2) and 352 read with 3(5) BNS and 66D of Information Technology Act, 2008. 2. Heard Sri P. Pratap, learned counsel for the petitioners and Sri Jithender Rao Veeramalla, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for respondent No.1-State.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that respondent No.2-de facto complainant has filed second F.I.R. basing on similar set of allegations, which is not tenable in the eye of law. Two F.I.Rs. cannot be lodged with regard to the same incident and same offences against the petitioners. He further submitted that on the earlier complaint, charge sheet has already been filed and the same was taken cognizance by the learned IV Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Nampally, Hyderabad, and numbered as C.C.No.6403 of 2025, and in the said case, the mobile phone of petitioner No.1 was seized. Since there is no material in the earlier case, the present F.I.R. is being lodged with the same set of allegations. In support of his submissions, learned counsel for the petitioners relied upon the judgment of the Honourable Apex Court in T.T. Antony v. State of Kerala and others, (2001) 6 Supreme Court Cases 181 and in light of the said judgment, he prayed to quash the proceedings in the present crime against the petitioners herein.

4. Learned Additional Public Prosecutor submitted that the present case is totally on a different cause of action. In the present crime, it is alleged that the petitioners herein are threatening the de facto complainant to withdraw the earlier case filed by her against the petitioners herein. Thus, the case cropped up from a different incident. Hence, the proceedings in the present crime cannot be quashed.

5. Perused the record.

6. In the first complaint, it is alleged that the petitioners tried to outrage the modesty of the de facto complainant and also caused hurt and threatened her. It is alleged that petitioner No.1, who was her classmate, developed acquaintance with her, followed her and proposed love, on which she denied, but he still insisted

her and started beating her with hands while on her way from college to her house and used to trouble her a lot. Further, there are certain incidents reported, in which she was targeted and beat by petitioner No.1 in public and on one day, when petitioner No.1 was harassing the de facto complainant by asking her to love him and has beaten her, the father of petitioner No.1 i.e., petitioner No.2 came there, hugged her, kissed her and brought her to Tarnaka on his bike and offered coconut water and when she refused, he scolded her by using abusive language. Petitioner No.1 also threatened that he would pour acid on her mother and tried to touch her private parts at metro station road. It is with the said set of allegations, the earlier complaint was lodged on 10.04.2025 vide F.I.R.No.178 of 2025 of O.U. City Police Station, Hyderabad.

7. The present F.I.R. is registered based on the complaint that petitioner No.1 has created an Instagram ID and has posted vulgar messages and nude photos of the de facto complainant, whereby third parties have started calling her and her family members. It is further alleged that the mother of petitioner No.1 called the de facto complainant and asked her to withdraw the case and abused her. It is further alleged that petitioner No.1 posted individual messages to her college friends stating that police have caught her at Kukatpally metro station, while she was doing prostitution. Thus, it is made out that the two complaints are based on two different incidents. The cause of action is entirely different in both the cases. Though the parties are same, since the alleged incidents in both the compl