Supreme Court - Daily Orders
K. Balasubramanian vs Hasham Investment And Trading Company ... on 25 February, 2021
Bench: D.Y. Chandrachud, M.R. Shah
1
ITEM NO.4 Court 6 (Video Conferencing) SECTION II-C
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Miscellaneous Application No.316/2021 in SLP(Crl) No.11394/2019
K. BALASUBRAMANIAN Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
HASHAM INVESTMENT AND TRADING COMPANY PRIVATE LTD. Respondent(s)
(WITH IA No. 10143/2021 - EXEMPTION FROM FILING AFFIDAVIT, IA No.
10141/2021 - RECALLING THE COURTS ORDER)
Date : 25-02-2021 This application was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE DR. JUSTICE D.Y. CHANDRACHUD
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.R. SHAH
For Petitioner(s) Mr. Abhishek Singh, Adv.
Mr. Arnav Dash, Adv.
Mr. Vipin Kumar Jai, AOR
For Respondent(s) Mr. S. Ganesh, Sr. Adv.
Mr. E. C. Agrawala, AOR
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
1 On 6 January 2020, in SLP(Crl) No 11394 of 2019, the following order was passed:
“We are not inclined to entertain this Special Leave Petition under Article 136 of the Constitution of India. The Special Leave Petition is accordingly dismissed. However, we clarify that the observations contained in Signature Not Verified the impugned order which were made while adjudicating Digitally signed by on an application under Section 482 of the Code of Sanjay Kumar Date: 2021.02.26 16:58:28 IST Criminal Procedure 1973 shall not affect the merits of the contentions of the petitioner at the trial. The order for Reason: the payment of costs imposed by the High Court shall stand deleted.2
Pending applications, if any, are disposed of.”
2 The Special Leave Petition was dismissed in the above terms at the preliminary hearing. Since the Petition was being dismissed, notice was not issued. 3 The Miscellaneous Application has been filed by the respondent, aggrieved by the observations in the penultimate paragraph of the order:
(i) Clarifying that the observations contained in the order of the High Court while deciding the application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 19731 shall not affect the merits of the contentions of the petitioner at the trial; and
(ii) Deleting the order for the payment of costs imposed by the High Court.
4 Mr S Ganesh, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the applicant, submits that:
(i) The observations of the High Court on the interpretation of the contract between the parties were invited by the respondent to the Miscellaneous Application (the original petitioner in the Special Leave Petition). Hence, it has been submitted that the clarification by this Court will obliterate the effect of the observations of the High Court at the criminal trial;
(ii) On the award of costs, the High Court had given elaborate reasons in paragraph 20 of its judgment principally on the ground that the filing of an application under Section 482 was an abuse of the process which was taken recourse to nearly ten years after the complaint was instituted under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act 1881.
1 “CrPC” 3 5 On the first aspect of the submissions of Mr S Ganesh, we find no reason to delete the clarification which has been made in the penultimate paragraph of the order dated 6 January 2020. It is trite law that the observations made by the High Court while disposing of an application under Section 482 of CrPC are prima facie in nature since the test which is to be applied while adjudicating upon a petition for quashing is whether, on the face of the allegations in the complaint as they stand, the offence has not been established. The clarification which has been made by this Court to the effect that the observations of the High Court while deciding the application under Section 482 of CrPC shall not affect the merits of the contentions of the original petitioner at the trial is, therefore, consistent with the well-settled position in this regard. In fact, acceding to the request of Mr S Ganesh would virtually conclude the trial on the strength of the observations made by the High Court while disposing of the application under Section 482 of CrPC. Hence, clarification does not require to be recalled. 6 On the issue of costs, however, we are of the view that the order of the High Court imposing costs of Rs 2,00,000 was based on reasons which were adduced in paragraph 20 of the order. The High Court found that the petition under Section 482 was filed after a decade and was an attempt to delay the trial. These observations were evidently not drawn to the attention of this Court when the order for the deletion of the costs was passed. Now, that the respondent has appeared and moved a Miscellaneous Application, as noted above, the ends of justice would require that the order for the deletion of costs should be recalled. Consequently, the last sentence in the penultimate paragraph of the order dated 6 January 2020, by which the payment of costs imposed by the High Court was deleted, shall stand recalled.
7 Mr S Ganesh fairly states that the respondent is not insisting on payment of costs to it and would voluntarily request that the costs be paid over to the 4 Supreme Court Lawyers Welfare Society. We order accordingly. 8 Having regard to the long pendency of the proceedings in the criminal complaint being CC No 25456 of 2009 pending before the Court of XXIII ASCJ and XXI ACMM, Bangalore, for over a decade, we issue a peremptory order and direct that the trial shall be concluded within a period of three months from the date on which a certified copy of this order is produced before the Trial Court. The trial Judge shall, upon conclusion of the proceedings, submit a report to the Registrar (Judicial) of this Court of the compliance of this order. 10 Subject to the above, the Miscellaneous Application stands disposed of.
(SANJAY KUMAR-I) (SAROJ KUMARI GAUR)
AR-CUM-PS COURT MASTER