Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
For The vs State Of Jharkhand" on 6 April, 2016
Author: R. K. Bag
Bench: R. K. Bag
1 20 06.04.2016
CRR 761 of 2014 GB Court No.09 Mr. Uday Sankar Chattopadhyay Mr. Suman Sankar Chattopadhyay Ms. Snigdha Saha ......For the Petitioners Mr. Sourav Chatterjee ......For the Opposite Party No.2 Mr. Ayan Basu ......For the State The petitioners have preferred this revision under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure praying for quashing of the proceeding in G. R. No.1539 of 2011 arising out of Hirapur Police Station Case No. 160 of 2011 dated September 3, 2011 under Sections 498A/406 of the Indian Penal Code and under Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act pending before the court of learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Asansol.
It appears from record that the Opposite Party No.2 filed a petition of complaint before the court of learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Asansol praying for forwarding the said complaint to the Officer-in-charge of the concerned police station under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure for registration of First Information Report and causing investigation. Accordingly, Hirapur Police Station Case No. 160 dated September 3, 2011 came into existence. The police investigated the said police case and submitted charge sheet against the petitioners for the offence under Sections 498A/406 2 of the Indian Penal Code and for the offence under Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.
Mr. Chattopadhyay, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the petitioner no.1 happens to be the husband of the opposite party no.2 and other petitioners happen to be the in-laws of the opposite party no.2. He submits that major part of the offences took place in the matrimonial home at village Bishay under Police Station Tarapur in the District of Munger in Bihar and as such learned Magistrate at Asansol has no territorial jurisdiction to take cognizance and try the case. He also argues that no specific allegation is made against the petitioner nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 and as such those petitioners cannot be compelled to face the trial. Mr. Chattopadhyay has relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in "Preeti Gupta V. State of Jharkhand"
reported in (2010) 7 SCC 667 in support of his contention.
Mr. Chatterjee, learned counsel for the Opposite Party No.2 submits that part of the offences took place in Bihar and part of the offences took place in the house of the mother of the opposite party no.2 within the territorial jurisdiction of learned Magistrate at Asansol and as such the offences can be tried by learned Magistrate at Asansol. He further contends that the opposite party no.2 has made allegation against the petitioner nos. 4,5,6 and 7 in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the petition of 3 complaint and as such the criminal proceeding may not be quashed at this stage against those petitioners.
Mr. Basu, learned counsel for the Opposite Party/State contends that there are allegations in the petition of complaint against all the petitioners and as such they should face the trial, particularly when the charge sheet is submitted against all the petitioners on completion of investigation.
The criteria laid down by the Supreme Court for quashing of the criminal proceeding in "State of Haryana V. Bhajanlal"
reported in 1992 SCC (Cri) 426 indicate that the criminal proceeding may be quashed if uncontrovered allegations made in the First Information Report or the complaint and the evidence collected in support of the same during investigation do not disclose commission of any offence against the accused person. By following the above decision of the Supreme Court I would like to consider the averments made in the petition of complaint to decide whether the allegations taken in its entirety disclose commission of offence by the petitioners. The contents of the petition of complaint disclose commission of cognizable offence by the petitioner nos. 1, 2, 3 and 8. However, the averments made in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the petition of complaint are vague and omnibus in nature. On Scrutiny of the averments made in the petition of complaint in general and the averments 4 made in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the petition of complaint in particular I do not find any specific allegation against the petitioner nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7, though vague allegations have been levelled against all the petitioners in those two paragraphs of the petition of complaint. In "Preeti Gupta V. State of Jharkhand"
reported in (2010) 7 SCC 667 the Supreme Court quashed the criminal proceeding against married sister-in-law and unmarried brother-in-law on the ground that there was no specific allegation against them in the complaint and they resided in separate States. By following the above decision of the Supreme Court I would also like to hold that the criminal proceeding is liable to be quashed against the petitioner nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7. It is relevant to point out that the petitioner nos. 4 and 5 are brothers-in-law of the opposite party no.2 and the petitioner no.6 is the wife of petitioner no.4 and the petitioner no. 7 is the married sister-in-law of the opposite party no.2.
On consideration of the written complaint treated as First Information Report I find that part of the offences took place in the matrimonial home of the opposite party no.2 at Bishay under Police Station Tarapur in the District of Munger in Bihar and part of the offences took place in the house of mother of the opposite party no.2 which is situated within the territorial jurisdiction of learned Magistrate at Asansol. Since part of the 5 offences took place within the territorial jurisdiction of learned Magistrate at Asansol, the criminal case can be tried at Asansol as per provision of Section 178 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Accordingly, I do not find any merit in submission made on behalf of the petitioners that learned Magistrate at Asansol had no jurisdiction to try the case.
In view of my above findings the criminal proceeding of G. R. No.1539 of 2011 arising out of Hirapur Police Station Case No. 160 of 2011 dated September 3, 2011 is quashed so far as the petitioner nos. 4 (Uday Kumar), 5 (Paban Kumar), 6 (Anjali Devi) and 7 (Mina Devi) are concerned. I would like to make it clear that learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Asansol will continue with the criminal proceeding against the remaining petitioners if the charge sheet is already submitted before the trial court.
With the above direction criminal revision is allowed in part.
Let a copy of this order be sent down to learned court below for favour of information and necessary action.
Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties on priority basis after compliance with all necessary formalities.
(R. K. Bag, J.) 6