Resolving a major legal problem of millions of Indians living abroad, the Supreme Court, in a significant judgment, has ruled that an Indian citizen can lodge a complaint with the police back home for an offence under the Indian Penal Code committed against him or her by a fellow citizen in a foreign country.
The judicial magistrate of the relevant jurisdiction has to take cognisance of all such cases registered by post from overseas with the police station of the jurisdiction in question, but a trial can proceed further only after sanction has been granted by the Union government.
Resolving a ticklish question of law whether the jurisdiction of Indian courts will extend to Indians living in different countries for an offence under the IPC committed there, a bench of Justices Altamas Kabir, Cyric Joseph and S.S. Nijjar ruled that an Indian citizen has the right to proceed against a fellow Indian in a court back home for an offence committed against him/her abroad. The court delivered this ruling, taking recourse to Section 4 of the IPC, in a dowry harassment case lodged by a woman from Andhra Pradesh against her husband from Botswana with the Sitharama police station in Andhra’s Prakasm district.