🔥 TWELVE YEARS. ONE FALSE CASE. AND A SYSTEM THAT BROKE AN OLD MAN

This is not a crime story.

This is a story about power — and what happens when it is abused without fear of consequence. For over twelve years, an 82-year-old man from Kerala lived under the shadow of a rape charge that should never have existed. His crime was not violence. It refused to bend in a financial dispute. What followed was a textbook example of how the criminal justice system can be turned into a punishment machine — not by criminals, but by those sworn to uphold the law.

⚖️ The Order That Exposed a Rot

On 8 january 2026, the State police Complaints Authority delivered a scathing order that cut through years of procedural silence. After examining records, judgments, and investigation files, the Authority concluded that police officers had maliciously and illegally prosecuted an innocent man, knowingly pushing him into a false rape trial.

criminal action has now been ordered against the officers themselves.

👴 Who Was Destroyed by the System

The victim was M.N. Janardhanan Nambiar, a senior citizen from Thrissur. His ordeal began not with any allegation of sexual assault, but with a routine financial dispute dating back to 2006.

A woman, Reetha, had borrowed money through a mutual acquaintance. Her cheques bounced. Legal proceedings followed — standard, lawful, and civil in nature. Nambiar was not even the complainant. He appeared only as a witness.

That should have been the end of it.
Instead, it was the beginning of a nightmare.

🧨 Pressure, Threats, and a Manufactured Case

When cheque cases didn’t go away, pressure tactics allegedly began. Associates of the borrower impersonated Human Rights Commission members to intimidate the petitioner. When Nambiar complained, cases were registered against the impersonators.

That is when the tone allegedly changed.

police officers, the Authority records, threatened him with a false rape case if he did not withdraw the cheque litigation. When Nambiar filed RTI applications, the police themselves confirmed something explosive: there was no rape complaint at that time.

⏰ Six Years of Silence — Then Suddenly, a Rape Case

For years, the woman had multiple opportunities to complain — to police, to authorities, to courts. She did not.

Then, in 2011, nearly six years after the alleged incident, a rape complaint suddenly surdata-faced. An FIR was registered under Section 376 IPC. An elderly man was arrested. His life collapsed overnight.

Delay alone does not kill a case — but here, delay was paired with inconsistency, contradiction, and absence of basic legal ingredients.

📂 Multiple Investigations. Same Blindness. Same Outcome.

What followed was worse.
Multiple officers investigated the case over the years. Each one filed charge sheets without applying the most elementary legal scrutiny. No one stopped to ask whether the allegations even met the statutory definition of rape.

The criminal process rolled on mechanically — hearings, remands, stigma, expense, humiliation — year after year.

This was not negligence.
The Authority concluded it was malicious prosecution.

🧑‍⚖️ The Acquittal That Came Too Late

In November 2023, the trial court finally acquitted the petitioner. The judgment was unambiguous. It held that:

“Out of enmity due to dispute in financial transactions… he was falsely implicated in a rape case.”

The court noted unexplained delay, lack of legal substance, and clear personal hostility. The law had finally spoken — but after twelve irreversible years.

🚔 Police Put in the Dock

After the acquittal, Nambiar approached the State police Complaints Authority. The Authority found that three officers had knowingly sent an innocent man to trial.

Their conduct, it ruled, attracts criminal liability under:

• Section 219 IPC – Corrupt public servant in judicial proceedings

• Section 220 IPC – Malicious commitment for trial

The Inspector General of police, thrissur Range, has now been directed to register criminal cases against these officers and report compliance within one month.

This is not departmental slap-on-the-wrist justice.
This is a criminal prosecution by the police.

💥 Why This Case Matters Beyond One Man

This case exposes how easily:

• Financial disputes can be weaponised

• False accusations can be laundered through police machinery

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• Legal safeguards can be ignored without consequence

An acquittal does not restore lost years.

It does not erase stigma.
It does not heal trauma.

When police fail in neutrality, the process itself becomes punishment.

🩸 Final Word

This order delivers a message the system desperately needed to hear:

Police officers are not above the law.
Authority without accountability is tyranny.
And wrongful prosecution is not a mistake — it is a crime.

For one old man, justice arrived painfully late.
For the system, this is a rare moment of reckoning.

The question now is not whether the law spoke.
It is whether the system will finally listen.