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Karnataka HC quashes case against teacher who rented property where tenants ran prostitution ring without her knowledge
The schoolteacher was booked under provisions of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita after the police raided her rented property in Udupi in September 2024.
The Karnataka High Court noted that even the prosecution did not claim the teacher was aware of the prostitution racket operating from her premises. (Image created using AI)
The Karnataka High Court has held that the owner of a property cannot be criminally prosecuted for a prostitution racket run by tenants on its premises without his or her knowledge.
Justice M Nagaprasanna said in an order on March 23, “Unless the owner has knowledge of what is happening in the premises, the owner of a particular property cannot be drawn into the web of proceedings.”
A 54-year-old schoolteacher approached the court seeking to quash a case registered against her under provisions of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita after the police raided her rented property at Karkala town in Udupi district on September 9, 2024.
Her counsel, Balakrishna M R, submitted that she had been teaching at a government primary school for the last 36 years. Although she owned the property, there was no rental agreement signed with the tenants, the other accused in the case, he argued.
The court noted that even the prosecution did not claim the teacher was aware of the prostitution racket operating from her premises.
“If the owner of the property working elsewhere [and] staying elsewhere has rented out the property and is not aware that prostitution is being run in the said house by accused Nos.1 and 2, petitioner cannot be hauled into the proceedings for punishment under the Act or under Section 144(2) of the BNS, 2023.”
The court thus quashed the case registered against the teacher.
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