Himachal Court Quashes Sexual Assault Complaint Against Actor Jeetendra The Himachal Pradesh High Court has quashed a complaint against veteran Bollywood actor Jeetendra, alleging that he sexually assaulted his cousin 48 years ago.
Justice Ajay Mohan Goyal rejected the FIR lodged on February 16 last year on Monday.
The crime is punishable with maximum imprisonment of two years.
Justice Goel found the actor's logic reliable in his 26-page verdict that the complaint was "deadly", because the daughter of the girl was rejected in the audition by Balaji Motion Pictures Limited, run by Jitendra's family.
The judge said that the content of the complaint does not provide land to proceed against the accused, because they appear to be "obscure" and "naturally absurd".
In the complaint, Jeetendra's cousin alleged that the assault took place in 1971 when the actor took him to a room in a Shimla hotel. There were two separate beds in the room. When she was asleep, she allegedly got involved in two beds and she tried to stop her modesty. He was drunk at the time, he claimed.
Actor's cousin claimed before the registration of the complaint that the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment encouraged her to speak against "abuse".
In 1971, she was 18 years old, while Jeetendra was 28 years old.
Jeetendra had filed a petition seeking the cancellation of the FIR. His petition said that his family started a media house and his cousin was upset because his daughter was not chosen for a role.
The court said that it is clear from the record that Jeetendra's cousin's daughter gave an audition for Balaji Motion Limited.
The court said, "It affects the credibility of this assumption that lodging an FIR was a malicious act and the daughter of her cousin was rejected."
It states that the content of the complaint is "ambiguous". They arrive at the conclusion that the allegations "are so absurd and naturally inappropriate, on the basis of which no discriminative person can ever reach this conclusion that there is sufficient ground for prosecution against the accused", the judge observed .
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