Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Ankur Gupta vs The State Of Uttar Pradesh on 23 October, 2017
Bench: Arun Mishra, Mohan M. Shantanagoudar
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 17306 OF 2017
(Arising out of SLP(Crl.)No.7689/2016)
ANKUR GUPTA ... APPELLANT
VS.
STATE OF U.P. & ANR. ... RESPONDENTS
O R D E R
1. Leave granted.
2. This appeal arises out of the judgment dated
23.8.2016, passed by the High Court of Judicature at
Allahabad in Criminal Misc. Application No. 24187/2016
filed under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code,
by which the High Court has dismissed the petition filed
by the appellant.
3. Records reveal that the parents of the appellant,
namely, Ajya Kumar Gupta and Smt. Anuradha Gupa,
Signature Not Verified
Digitally signed by
SARITA PUROHIT
entered into an agreement to sell dated 14.1.1997 with
Date: 2017.10.28
16:46:24 IST
Reason:
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.2.
Respondent No.2 herein. The sale consideration was
Rs.33,50,000/ (Rupees Thirty Three Lakhs Fifty
Thousand only); the parents of the appellant received
earnest money of Rs.6,50,101/ (Rupees Six Lakhs Fifty
Thousand One Hundred One only) and remaining amount
was to be paid at time of registration of the sale deed.
The appellant however denies about the receipt of earnest
money of Rs.6,50,101/ by his parents. It seems that the
said transaction for agreement to sell was not completed.
Civil Suit in that regard is filed and is pending.
Respondent No.2 lodged the complaint before the police
authorities, Rampur, making allegations of cheating,
breach of trust, etc., against the parents of the appellant
as well as the appellant, which came to be registered as
FIR No.03/2016 for the offences under Sections 406, 420
and 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Chargesheet
No.23/2016 also came to be filed against the three
persons, including the appellant. Cognizance was taken
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.3.
by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rampur, against the
appellant and his parents.
The appellant moved an application before the High
Court of Judicature at Allahabad in Criminal Misc.
Application No.24187/2016 under Section 482 Cr.P.C.
for quashing the proceedings against him and the same
came to be dismissed by the impugned judgment.
4. There cannot be any dispute that the parents of the
appellant on the one side and the respondent on the
other entered into an agreement to sell in respect of a
property, i.e., House No.18, Mohalla Peepal Tola, Rampur
(U.P.); the parents of the appellant are the owners of the
said property; the original agreement to sell dated
4.1.2013 was entered between only the parents of the
appellant and Respondent No.2; the earnest money was
allegedly paid to the parents of the appellant. It is also
not in dispute that the appellant is not the owner of the
property in question. He was neither a witness nor a
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.4.
party to the agreement to sell or any other document
whatsoever. Initially Respondent No.2 – Complainant
lodged a complaint on 24.8.2014 only against the parents
of the appellant and not against the appellant. The first
legal notice dated 9.5.2015 sent by the complainant
through his counsel does not disclose any allegation
against the appellant. The Civil Suit filed by Respondent
No.2 and another on 1.1.2016 was only against the
parents of the appellant and not against the appellant.
Since there is no allegation against the appellant in
respect of the transaction, i.e., agreement to sell, it is
clear that subsequently the complaint is lodged by
Respondent No.2 against the appellant only to cause
hardship to him. Except the bald allegation that the
appellant also accompanied his parents at the time of
negotiations in respect of the agreement to sell, no other
material is found against the appellant. In this regard,
learned counsel for the appellant is justified in arguing
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.5.
that the Criminal Proceeding against appellant based on
false and frivolous allegation is liable to be quashed as
against the appellant.
5. This Court, in a number of decisions, gave notice of
caution to the effect that the power of quashing the
criminal proceedings should be exercised very sparingly
and with circumspection and that too in the rarest of rare
cases. The extraordinary or inherent powers as contained
in Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure do not
confer an arbitrary jurisdiction on the Court to act
according to its whims and caprice. The power to quash
shall not, however, be used to stifle or scuttle a
legitimate prosecution. The power should be used
sparingly and with abundant caution. However, it is by
now well settled that where a criminal proceeding is
manifestly attended with mala fide and/or where the
proceeding is maliciously instituted with an ulterior
motive for wreaking vengeance on the person and with a
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view to spite him due to private and personal grudge, the
power under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C may be exercised.
Such power will be exercised either to prevent abuse of
the process of Court or otherwise to secure the ends of
justice, though it may not be possible to law down any
precise, clearly defined and sufficiently channelized and
inflexible guidelines or rigid formulae and to give an
exhaustive list of myriad kinds of cases wherein such
power should be exercised. (Reference may be made to
the judgments of this Court in the cases of State of
Haryana vs. Bhajan Lal, (1992) Supp. (1) SCC 335; Pepsi
Foods Limited vs. Special Judicial Magistrate, AIR 1998
SC 128; Trisuns Chemical Industry vs. Rajesh Agarwal,
(1999) 8 SCC 53; Rajesh Bajaj vs. State(NCT) of Delhi,
(1999) 3 SCC 259; K. Ramakrishna v. State of Bihar,
(2000) 8 SCC 547; M/s Indian Oi Corporation vs. M/s
Nepc India Limited, AIR 2006 SC 2780; and Vineet Kumar
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.7.
and others v. State of UP and another 2017 (4) SCALE
292.
6. When a complaint does not make out any case
against the accused, it will not be correct to say that the
accused must still undergo the agony of criminal trial.
When there is an abuse of process of law and the Courts,
the High Court should not shy away in exercising its
jurisdiction. The provisions of Section 482 of the Cr.P.C.
are devised to advance justice and not to frustrate it.
The allegations made in the first information report or
the complaint, if are accepted in their entirety, and are
taken at the face value, do not prima facie constitute any
offence or make out a case against the accused, or where
the allegations made are so absurd and inherently
improbable on the basis of which no prudent person can
ever reach a just conclusion that there is sufficient room
for proceeding against the accused, the jurisdiction under
Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. needs to be exercised. In the
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.8.
matter on hand, a blurred allegation of threat to life by
the accused including the appellant is made in the
complaint. However, the police after investigation did
not find prima facie any case against any of the accused
including the appellant for the said offence. Judicial
process is a solemn proceeding which cannot be allowed
to be converted into an instrument of oppression or
harassment. As mentioned supra, the records in this
matter merely reveal the allegation of cheating and
criminal breach of trust on the part of the parents of the
appellant. Since the appellant is not a party to the
agreement or any transaction between the complainant
and other accused, there is no reason as to why he should
face criminal trial and that too for the offences under
Sections 406, 420 IPC etc. The allegations found in the
investigation records, even if are taken at the face value,
do not constitute an offence alleged against the
appellant. As the offence alleged is not disclosed, the
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.9.
appellant should be saved from frivolous criminal
litigation. The admitted facts and documents relied upon
by the complaint, without weighing or sifting of evidence,
do not make out any case against the appellant & hence
the criminal proceedings instituted against him are
required to be quashed. In our view, the High Court
should not have adopted rigid approach which certainly
has led to miscarriage of justice in this case, particularly
when the High Court has concluded that the appellant is
not a party to the transaction between his parents and
the complainant. The power of judicial review is
discretionary but this is a case where the High Court
should have exercised it.
7. Having regard to the material on record and the
well settled principles of law mentioned supra, we do not
find any ground to continue the prosecution against the
appellant and, hence, the proceedings are liable to be
quashed qua him. Accordingly, the criminal proceedings
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.10.
in Case No.898/2016 arising from FIR No.03/2016 for the
offences punishable under Sections 406, 420 and 506 of
the Indian Penal Code (IPC) stand quashed against the
appellant.
8. The appeal is allowed. Pending application, if any,
stands disposed of.
……….…………………………………J.
[ARUN MISHRA]
…………………............................J.
[MOHAN M. SHANTANAGOUDAR]
New Delhi;
23rd October, 2017.
ITEM NO.46 COURT NO.10 SECTION II
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No(s).7689/2016
(Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 23-08-2016
in APP No.24187/2016 passed by the High Court Of Judicature At
Allahabad)
ANKUR GUPTA Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
STATE OF U.P. & ANR. Respondent(s)
(with appln.(s) for exemption from filing O.T.)
Date : 23-10-2017 These matters were called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARUN MISHRA
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MOHAN M. SHANTANAGOUDAR
For Petitioner(s) Mr. Pardeep Gupta,Adv.
Mr. Parinav Gupta,Adv.
Ms. Mansi Gupta,Adv.
For (Mrs.) Vipin Gupta,AOR
For Respondent(s) Mr. Jitendra Kumar Tripathi,Adv.
State Mr. Samir Ali Khan,Adv.
Mr. Andleeb Naqvi,Adv.
Mr. Anoop Kumar Srivastava,Adv.
Mr. R.N. Pareek,Adv.
Mr. Vipin Kumar Saxena,Adv.
Mr. Umesh Chandra Srivastava,Adv.
Mr. Abhishek Chaudhary,AOR
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
Leave granted.
The appeal is allowed in terms of the signed order.
(Sarita Purohit) (Tapan Kumar Chakraborty) Court master Branch Officer (Signed order is placed on the file)