Hyderabad: The Telangana high court on Friday quashed two criminal cases registered against professor C Kaseem, principal of Osmania University’s Arts College, citing a significant procedural lapse in the filing of the charges. Kaseem is currently serving as the head of the Telugu department at the university.Justice Tukaram ruled that the cases, which alleged that the professor conducted an unauthorised dharna on campus, could not legally proceed because they violated mandatory statutory safeguards.The cases were registered against the professor at the OU police station in 2023 for allegedly violating a prohibitory order issued by the university registrar by organising a protest on campus and allegedly creating a nuisance. Kaseem’s counsel, T Rahul, argued that the law prescribes a specific and strict procedure for initiating such charges.The court found that it cannot take cognisance of such offences unless the public servant involved, in this instance, the registrar, files a written complaint directly before a magistrate. In Kaseem’s case, however, the police registered FIRs based on internal information, bypassing the required legal channel.By upholding this precedent, the high court emphasised that when the law prescribes a specific procedure for prosecution, any deviation makes the proceedings unsustainable, and it allowed the criminal petitions filed by Kaseem, thereby quashing the proceedings against him.
