Punjab-Haryana High Court
Sushma Rani And Ors. vs Veena Rani on 21 February, 1991
Equivalent citations: II(1991)DMC204
JUDGMENT A.P. Chowdhri, J.
1. Veena Rani was married to Rajinder Kumar on 21.7.1980. Parties appear to have fallen out with each other. According to the wife, the cause of dispute was insatiable demand of dowry by husband and other relations of the husband from the wife and on her failure to comply with their wishes, infliction of great cruelty on her. They even tried to burn her. She filed a complaint after all efforts for reconciliation had failed. The complaint was under Sections 406 and 498A, Indian Penal Code and 4 and 6 of the Dowry Prohibition Act. Five witnesses were examined in preliminary evidence. The learned Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Sangrur summoned the husband and his father for an offence under Section 406 and all the accused i.e. husband, father, mother, brother and sister of the husband under Section 498A, Indian Penal Code. The summoned accused filed a revision petition which was dismissed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Sangrur on 6.9.1990. The sister and both the parents of the husband have filed this petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing the complaint and the summoning order.
2. The main contention Mr. V.G. Dogra, the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the parents of Rajinder Kumar had been living separately and Sushma Rani sister of the husband had been married and was living in Delhi and they had been roped in order to harass the husband against whom Veena Rani is feeling sore. This, according to the learned counsel, is an abuse of process of Court and, therefore, the inherent powers of this Court should be invoked to prevent failure of justice.
3. The learned counsel appearing for the respondent raised a preliminary objection. He contended that in view of dismissal of the revision petition by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, the present petition does not lie by describing the same as a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. According to the learned counsel, in fact the present petition is nothing but a second revision petition which is expressly barred under Section 397(3) Cr.P.C.
4. The law with regard to bar provided under Section 397(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure is fairly well settled. A Division Bench of this Court in Charanjit Singh and others v. Smt. Gursharan Kaur 1990 Cri.L.J 1264 after reviewing the case law concluded the legal position, thus:
"The legal position that thus emerges is that the provisions of Section 397 of the Code do not constitute or operate as a bar to the exercise by the High Court of its inherent power under Section 482 of the Code. The limitation here, as observed in Raj Kapoor's case (1980 Cri.L.J. 202)(SC) (supra) is self-restraint and no more. It must of course, be observed that where an order is amenable to revision the order of the revisional Court should be interfered with very sparingly and that too only for the purposes as invisaged by Section 482 of the Code. Such cases would clearly be few and far between."
5. Though technically a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is not barred but for all practical purposes, it is only in rarest of rare cases properly made out for invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction that powers under Section 482 of 'the Code of Criminal Procedure are exercised by the High Court. On a consideration of facts and circumstances of the present case, I .do no think that any such case has been made out. The learned counsel for the petitioners has not been able to show by any clinching material that the parents of the boy in question had been living separately from-him or had not taken part in his marriage. The prima facie averments made in the complaint have to be assumed to be true. The remaining pleas are open to the accused and can be taken at an appropriate stage in the trial There is no case for quashing the first information report. The petition is dismissed. The parties through their counsel are directed to appear in the trial Court on 11.3.1991 for further proceedings according to law.