The Karnataka High Court has quashed a criminal case registered against Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, former Indian Institute of Science Director Balaram P and 14 others under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act, Bar and Bench reported on Monday.

Justice Hemant Chandangoudar, delivering the decision on April 16, described the complaint filed by former institute faculty member D Sanna Durgappa a “vexatious attempt to harass the petitioners” after he was sacked in 2015. The court held that the accusations were not offences under the anti-discrimination law and that the complaint abused the legal process.

Durgappa, a member of the Scheduled Caste community, was an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science’s Centre for Sustainable Technology. He alleged that the petitioners harassed him for his caste position, framed him for sexual harassment and terminated his employment without fair inquiry. He also claimed that two of the institute’s lawyers threatened him to resign and also tried to cancel his advocate’s licence.

The first information report, which has now been quashed, was registered by the Sadashiva Nagar police in Bengaluru on January 28 on the instruction of the City Civil and Sessions Court. The trial court’s direction came on a private complaint by Durgappa. At the time of the claimed incidents, Gopalakrishnan was a member of the institute’s governing council.

Durgappa claimed he was denied laboratory funds and a sitting area, and that he had been falsely implicated in two cases: one of financial fraud and the other of sexual harassment. He sought an investigation by the Legislative Assembly’s SC/ST Committee, which was conducted in August 2017.

The investigation did not find any evidence of sexual harassment and said he had been singled out because he was a Dalit.

The court noted that the dispute was civil in nature, but presented as a criminal one. “The filing of a third complaint with similar allegations is clearly a vexatious attempt to harass the petitioners for having terminated the complainant’s service, which was subsequently converted into resignation,” it said.

Durgappa’s termination in 2015 had been challenged before the High Court where a settlement was reached, rendering the termination a resignation. As part of the settlement, Durgappa received benefits and agreed to withdraw all related complaints, including those filed with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. He nevertheless filed a criminal complaint against the college’s representatives.

Two previous complaints filed by Durgappa in 2016 and 2017 under the anti-discrimination law had also been quashed by the High Court after it found that a civil dispute was being treated criminally.

Justice Chandangoudar said the repeated filing of complaints was an abuse of law and allowed the petitioners to seek permission from the advocate general for criminal contempt proceedings against Durgappa. All pending interim applications were dismissed as the main petition was resolved.