"This court can exercise jurisdiction in all those cases where though the crime should have been registered in Delhi, but under influence the police of some other state registers the crime in that state," Justice S N Dhingra observed recently.

The court passed the observation in a judgment in a petition filed by a US-based man challenging the validity of a dowry harassment complaint lodged by his father-in-law with the Patna police. V K Singh, a resident of Patna, had filed the complaint under Section 498-A (dowry harassment) and relevant provisions of the Dowry Prohibition Act with the Digha Police Station in Patna, Bihar, in 2002.

Singh's son-in-law, Niraj Trivedi, approached the Delhi High Court seeking to quash the FIR registered in Patna, saying that he was a permanent resident of Delhi employed in the US. He said Patna police had no jurisdiction to file an FIR in the matter as he had hardly visited his in-laws there, except for a two-day visit with his wife.

Countering Trivedi's contentions, Singh reasoned that he had filed the complaint in Patna merely because it was his "distraught" daughter's hometown with her relatives to give support. Justice Dhingra, however, dismissed Singh's submissions after learning that even the latter's daughter was not based in Patna, but in the US.