The bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Sanjay Kumar today dismissed an anticipatory bail application of an accused who has allegedly collected money from people (Crowd Funding) by projecting minor son of the complainant on social media as he is a transgender and wants to get his sex change from boy to girl.

It was been alleged that the accused petitioner is running a racket of collecting money from people over internet by creating fake profile and using photographs of different people.

The Court also noted the fact that the prosecuting (State of Kerala) agency requires her for custodial interrogation.

The Complainant who was represented before the Supreme Court through Advocate Anil Kaushik assisted by Advocate Abhishek Mishra stated that the accused procured the photographs of the complainant’s minor son and two others and put it on a donation campaign page called “Support Rosetta” on fundraising webs-site www.milaap.org and on social media page of Instagram. The name of the boy was stated to be “Karthikeyan Malhotra with PAN no. who is seeking help for an amount of Rs. 1,40,000/- for “Hormone replacement therapy”. In the post accused Mukesh Chaudhary projected himself as the guardian f the minor boy and bank account details were also given. VADLAMUDI PRATIKSHA SHARMA is the accused and Karthikeyan Malhotra is the co-accused in the matter.

It was stated in the petition that the petitioner contacted the minor boy through social media and contacted him for fundraising. It has been alleged that the petitioner is educationally qualified and well aware that administering hormone replacement therapy to a minor without the knowledge of permission of the parents is a crime, still provided the details of the minor on the campaign page.

The complainant also filed an application for seeking CBI Investigation of the matter but the court denied the relief which was withdrawn by the complainant to file an appropriate petition.

Advocate Dr. Farrukh Khan, appeared for the petitioner and the State of Kerala was represented by Mr. Harshad V. Hameed.

Case Details:-

SLP(Crl) No. 10878/2022
VADLAMUDI PRATIKSHA SHARMA 
Versus
THE STATE OF KERALA AND ANR.