Statutory ingredients and strong suspicion govern discharge where allegations of voyeurism, intimidation and wrongful restraint lack supporting material.

Voyeurism requires allegations that a woman was watched or recorded while engaged in a private act with a reasonable expectation of privacy; photographs or videos alone do not satisfy that requirement. Criminal intimidation requires a particularised threat of injury intended to cause alarm, which cannot rest on a bare assertion. Wrongful restraint requires obstruction of a person entitled to proceed, subject to a good-faith belief in lawful right. Where prosecution material does not disclose these statutory ingredients or create strong suspicion based on legally tenable evidence, discharge is warranted and the dispute remains within available civil remedies.

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Issues: (i) Whether the allegations and charge-sheet disclosed voyeurism under Section 354C of the Indian Penal Code, 1860; (ii) Whether the material disclosed criminal intimidation under Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860; (iii) Whether the material disclosed wrongful restraint under Section 341 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and justified refusal of discharge.

Issue (i): Whether the allegations and charge-sheet disclosed voyeurism under Section 354C of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

Analysis: Voyeurism requires watching or capturing a woman while she is engaged in a private act in circumstances giving her a reasonable expectation of privacy. The FIR and charge-sheet alleged only that photographs and videos were taken, without alleging that the complainant was engaged in a private act.

Conclusion: No offence of voyeurism was made out; the finding is in favour of the appellant.

Issue (ii): Whether the material disclosed criminal intimidation under Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

Analysis: Criminal intimidation requires a threat of injury to person, reputation, or property, made with intent to cause alarm. Apart from a bare assertion of intimidation through photographing, the record contained no particulars of any threat, injury, or words used, and no supporting statement of the complainant or accompanying persons.

Conclusion: The ingredients of criminal intimidation were not attracted; the finding is in favour of the appellant.

Issue (iii): Whether the material disclosed wrongful restraint under Section 341 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and justified refusal of discharge.

Analysis: Wrongful restraint requires obstruction of a person entitled to proceed in the relevant direction, subject to the exception where obstruction is caused in good faith under a belief of lawful right. The material did not establish that the complainant was a tenant or otherwise entitled to enter the property; it indicated that she was only a prospective tenant. Her proposed induction also conflicted with the subsisting injunction against creation of third-party rights. The appellant's conduct was consistent with a bona fide assertion of lawful rights arising from the injunction. At the discharge stage, prosecution material must generate strong suspicion founded on evidence capable of translation at trial; that threshold was absent.

Conclusion: Wrongful restraint was not made out and discharge was warranted; the finding is in favour of the appellant.

Final Conclusion: The criminal prosecution lacked legally tenable material creating strong suspicion for any of the alleged offences, and the dispute was properly confined to available civil remedies.

Ratio Decidendi: An accused must be discharged where prosecution material, even accepted at face value, does not disclose the statutory ingredients of the alleged offences or generate strong suspicion founded on legally tenable evidence.

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