HC cancels order for FIR against BJP’s Shahnawaz Hussain, brother in rape case
Justice Amit Mahajan ruled that the two brothers did not have a right to be heard when the woman first approached the sessions court to file an FIR against them but the right could not be taken away in a challenge
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has set aside an order by a city court in May last year to register a first information report (FIR) against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and his brother Shahbaz in a rape case and remanded the case back to the sessions court for a fresh decision.
Justice Amit Mahajan ruled that the two brothers did not have a right to be heard when the woman first approached the sessions court to file an FIR against them.
“Once an order (to register FIR) is passed, some rights accrue either in favour of, or against the parties. Such rights cannot be taken away in a challenge made against the order without there being issuance of any notice or an opportunity of hearing, to the party whose right is now sought to be taken away,” justice Mahajan said in his order dated March 3.
In her complaint, the woman alleged that she met Shahbaz Hussain in connection with work related to an NGO and that Shahbaz introduced himself as the BJP leader’s brother.
The woman alleged that she “developed intimacy” with Shahbaz Hussain as he promised to marry her and that he did marry her in the presence of a maulvi in January 2017 but she later found that the maulvi issued a fake marriage certificate.
The woman alleged that she later learnt that he had been married all along.
When a magistrate’s court declined to order registration of FIR on the woman’s complaint, she approached an additional sessions judge who ordered on May 31 last year that the woman complaint disclosed a cognizable offence by Shahbaz Hussain and directed the Delhi Police to register FIR and investigate.
Shahnawaz Hussain and his brother moved the Delhi High court against the sessions court’s order, underlining that no notice was issued by the judge in the criminal revision petition filed by the complainant. Their plea said they were not granted an opportunity of a hearing, and had they been allowed, they would have placed the law and the facts in the correct perspective.