Bombay High Court allows T-Series MD Bhushan Kumar to withdraw plea to quash rape FIR after police close case

The Bombay High Court Thursday permitted the Managing Director of T-series to withdraw a plea filed by him seeking the quashing of a first information report (FIR) in a rape case after noting that a magistrate had accepted a closure report by the police in the case [Bhushan Kumar v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.]..A division bench of Justices PD Naik and NR Borkar was informed today by Kumar's lawyer advocate Niranjan Mundargi that the Metropolitan Magistrate at Andheri had accepted a B-summary report (closure report) filed by the police on November 9, 2023. A B-summary report indicates that the police have either found no prima facie evidence in their investigation or that the FIR was maliciously filed.With the acceptance of the B-summary report, the investigation and the FIR was closed rendering the quashing plea by Kumar infructuous, the Court was told.The division bench accepted this submission and permitted Kumar to withdraw his petition before the High Court..An FIR was registered in July 2021 against Kumar citing incidents that had allegedly been taking place since 2017. A closure report was first filed in the matter before the concerned magistrate in 2022.A local politician Mallikarjun Pujari filed a protest petition against the closure report, claiming he had helped the woman (complainant) register the FIR but that she had later backtracked and granted her consent to close the proceedings. The magistrate initially rejected the closure report in April 2022. Kumar then approached the High Court.On April 26, 2023, when the High Court was hearing the petition, the division bench expressed its disinclination to quash the FIR merely because the complainant had granted consent to quash the FIR. The Bench also examined the FIR, the consent affidavit of the aggrieved woman and a detailed order of the magistrate. It noted that while refusing the closure report, the magistrate had opined that the woman had first set the criminal law in motion and, thereafter, while accepting the closure report, furnished an assurance that she had misused the provisions for personal gain and advantage.The High Court also noted that the magistrate had not recorded the statement of the victim under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, before declining to close the case at the time.Thereafter, the police again filed a B summary report in 2023 which came to be accepted by the Andheri Magistrate this month.