Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, former President of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), has questioned the jurisdiction of a Delhi court trying a sexual harassment case lodged against him by six female wrestlers on the grounds that no alleged incident or consequence took place in India.
Appearing for the BJP MP, Advocate Rajiv Mohan made the submission before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Harjeet Singh Jaspal of the Rouse Avenue Court on Monday, during the argument on whether to frame charges against Singh.
Advocate Mohan contended that since the alleged offences took place, as per the prosecution, at Tokyo, Mongolia, Bulgaria, Jakarta, Kazakhstan and Turkey, the same could not be tried by this court.
As per the counsel, the ACMM court had no ‘jurisdiction’ to try any offence, which had allegedly been committed outside India, in view of the fact that sanction under Section 188 CrPC had not been obtained.
The counsel appearing for the prosecution contended that the act of sexual harassment of victims was a continuing offence, as it did not stop at any particular time. The accused molested the victims whenever he got the opportunity and therefore, such harassment could not be looked at in isolated brackets and the series or the chain thereof needed to be seen as one, adde the prosecution counsel.
The ACMM then granted three weeks to the parties to file their written arguments so they could be concluded in a systematic manner and listed the matter for hearing on November 22.