In Kamalanantha v State of Tamil Nadu (2005), the victim girls lived in an ashram controlled by the…

The proviso to section 160(1) CrPC (now the proviso to section 179(1) of the BNSS) generally protects women from being required to attend anywhere other than their residence. In Kamalanantha the Supreme Court rejected the challenge on its facts: the girls lived in an ashram controlled by the accused and had been threatened, so their removal to a women's police station for safety, and their examination there, was upheld. The ruling turns on those circumstances and gives no general power to summon women witnesses to a police station.