S.D.BAJAJ,J - (1.) PETITIONER Kanwar Pal Singh Gill D.G.P. is an I.P.S. officer, while author of the First Information Report Mrs. Rupan Deol Bajaj as also her husband B.R. Bajaj are both I.A.S. Officers of more than 20 years' service enjoying super time scale in Commissioner's rank. All the three of them had gone to House No. 288, Sector 16, Chandigarh, occupied by Shri S.L. Kapur, Financial Commissioner/Home for dinner on 18th July, 1988. Men-folk as also ladies have had their drinks before dinner could be served to them.
(2.) AROUND 10 p.m. on 19th July, 1988 the dinner night the petitioner went to the semi-circle sitting place of ladies attending the party and requested the author of the First Information Report Mrs. Rupan Deol Bajaj to come and sit with him because he wanted to talk something to her. She got up from her chair and went towards him for sitting on the chair next after him. Twice over, when she was about to sit therein, the petitioner allegedly pulled that chair close to and almost touching his own chair. Feeling something wrong in the offing she returned to and sat in the chair previously occupied by her in the semi-circle of ladies. Ten minutes thereafter, the petitioner came towards the author of the First Information Report and asked her to stand up and accompany him. Instead of doing so she pulled her chair backwards and was in the process of slipping away from the gap thereby crated when the petitioner allegedly slapped her on the posterior. In the complaint created allegedly made orally to the host (Shri S.L. Kapur) as also to Joint Director Intelligence Bureau (Mr. Pathak) immediately after the occurrence, the author of the First Information Report said, "He has even hit me". First Information Report was lodged 11 days after the occurrence on 29th July, 1988 and the complaint by her husband Shri B.R. Bajaj was instituted on 22nd November, 1988 nearly four months after the occurrence.
(3.) IT has been urged on behalf of the petitioner that the author of the First Information Report as also the complainant are both making much a do about nothing. Both the petitioner as also the author of the First Information Report were previously known to each other as brother/sister officers in two top most cadres of the country's services and it was for this very reason that Mrs. Rupan Deol Bajaj had initially risen from her seat in the midst of ladies and willingly came to occupy the seat next to Shri Kanwar Pal Singh and what happened thereafter was only display of eagerness on the part of the petitioner to prevent over-hearing of their talk by someone else and show of resentment over the author of the First Information Reports' conduct in avoiding the petitioner instead of listening to him, for which Mrs. Rupan Deol Bajaj had initially come to sit closer to him. According to the learned Counsel for the petitioner, there was complete absence of the mens rea or guilty mind in the petitioner to indulge in outraging the modesty of the author of the First Information Report nor could an act be possibly intended to be indulged in or done in the presence of 48 other noteworthy guests; every one of whom was more important in social circles of Chandigarh than the other. It was also asserted that sudden accidental slip even if any indulged in by the petitioner has, of course, to be ignored in terms of Section 95 of the Indian Penal Code.;