Allahabad High Court
Sundar Lal & Others vs State Of U.P. & Another on 24 July, 2018
Author: Karuna Nand Bajpayee
Bench: Karuna Nand Bajpayee
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD ?A.F.R. Court No. - 48 Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 16258 of 2006 Applicant :- Sundar Lal & Others Opposite Party :- State Of U.P. & Another Counsel for Applicant :- J.N. Singh Counsel for Opposite Party :- Govt. Advocate Hon'ble Karuna Nand Bajpayee,J.
This application u/s 482 Cr.P.C. has been moved on behalf of applicants seeking the quashing of entire proceedings of Complaint Case No.7412 of 2005 (Smt. Sushama vs. Sundar Lal and others), u/s 498A, 323, 504, 506, 452 I.P.C. and Section 3/4 of Dowry Prohibition Act, pending in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Farrukhabad.
Heard learned counsel for the applicants and learned A.G.A.
Submission of counsel for the applicants is that actually all the allegations made in the complaint are concocted, false and have been deliberately cooked up in order to create pressure upon the applicants to partition the land. Applicant No.1 Sundar Lal is the elder father-in-law, applicant no.2 Anoop Singh is father-in-law, applicant no.3 Smt. Prema Devi is mother-in-law and applicant no.4 Mahendra Singh is brother-in-law (devar) of complainant-opposite party no.2. Further submission is that the husband of complainant has not been made accused in this case because he is in collusion with complainant. The reality is that the complainant and her husband want that the property should be partitioned but the same is being resisted by the applicants as the property in question is ancestral. Therefore eventually the complainant has decided to contrive the present untoward mechanism to exert coercive pressure upon the family. It has been emphasized by the counsel that in reality on the date of incident the complainant never lived in the place where she claims to have been present while in fact she along with her husband had left the village long back and had started living along with her husband in the state of Haryana, where her husband was in service from year 2000 as Electrician in a firm known as Deepak Electricals, situated at 1041, Sector-21-C, Faridabad (Haryana). The complainant's husband was also a member of Employees State Insurance Corporation in Faridabad (Haryana) and the identity card has also been issued by the Corporation to the husband of opposite party no.2 in which the name of opposite party no.2-complainant herself has been mentioned at serial no.2. Counsel has relied in this regard upon Annexure nos.6 and 7 which have been filed along with this application and has tried to show from these documents about the factum of the service of complainant's husband in the aforesaid company and in the state of Haryana. Counsel has also placed reliance upon the copy of Rashan Card in proof of the residence of complainant in Haryana, and the same has been annexed as Annexure No.8 along with this application. Counsel has also tried to explain that it is because of same background which is at the back of not nominating the husband as accused who is normally one of the prime accused in such cases with such allegations as have been made by the complainant. If the husband himself was not interested in any demand of dowry and if husband was not ill-treating his wife, there was hardly any occasion for other in-laws to have misadventured on that line. Counsel has tried to elaborate upon the elements of high improbability in the prosecution story and the unlikelihood of the applicants for having indulged in such kind of activities as has been alleged. Counsel has further tried to argue about the false nature of accusations made in the complaint on the ground that in the statement given by the wife in the Court u/s 200 Cr.P.C, she has herself gone to admit that initially she tried to lodge a complaint in the police station but the version gave out was not recorded correctly and the version that was recorded was a different from the actual version. She has tried to explain the change of version on the ground that the police department was under pressure and that is why her version was not correctly recorded. Contention is that it is a clear admission that the earlier said version given by the complainant in the police station at an earlier point of time was a very different version and the names of the accused were also quite different from the latter version which she has developed and given out in the Court in the present complaint. Submission is that the applicants are very ordinary persons and there is absolutely no chance for them having any kind of influence or clout which they could have wielded on the police department. They are simple farmers belonging to a very low economic strata of the society. The argument is that the change of version in the complaint is a proven fact and that also cuts at the very root of the credibility of the version given in the complaint and the continuation of proceedings, according to the counsel, in this conspicuous background shall result in abuse of process of the Court.
Perused the record in the light of submissions made at the bar.
Perusal of the record shows that the arguments raised by the counsel cannot be rejected as being without substance. The documents filed on behalf of counsel for the applicants go to strongly indicate that the husband of the complainant is in service in State of Haryana. There are also circumstances to indicate strongly that balance of probability also goes in favour of the fact as has been pleaded on behalf of applicants that the complainant must have lived along with her husband. The conspicuous fact of the husband not having been made the accused is also a fact not without significance and is in fact pregnant with important inferences. The change of version between the version given in the police station and the version given out in the complaint is also indicative about the improvised nature of the complaint and therefore it cannot be said that the version contained in the complaint contains the unvarnished whole truth or that it is free from foibles or potholes. Certainly it does not appear to be version on which implicit reliance may be placed by the Court. The plea as has been raised on behalf of the applicants that there is malice behind this prosecution and the motive to create coercive pressure upon the accused in order to get the land partitioned also appears to have substance and cannot be rejected outright. In this regard we may usefully keep in perspective the law laid down by Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of State of Haryana Vs. Bhajan Lal 1992 SCC(Cr.) 426, in which certain categories have been recognized on the basis of which the criminal proceeding against a certain party or the accused may be quashed. It was observed by the Hon'ble Apex Court in Bhajan Lal's case as follows:-
"The following categories can be stated by way of illustration wherein the extra-ordinary power under Article 226 or the inherent powers under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure can be exercised by the High Court either to prevent abuse of the process of any Court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice, though it may not be possible to lay down any precise, clearly defined and sufficiently channelised and inflexible guidelines or rigid formulae and to give an exhaustive list of myriad kinds of cases wherein such power should be exercised:
(1) where the allegations made in the First Information Report or the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out a case against the accused.
(2) where the allegations in the First Information Report and other materials, if any, accompanying the F.I.R. do not disclose a cognizable offence, justifying an investigation by police officers under Section 156(1) of the Code except under an order of a Magistrate within the purview of Section 155(2) of the Code.
(3) where the uncontroverted allegations made in the FIR or complaint and the evidence collected in support of the same do not disclose the commission of any offence and make out a case against the accused.
(4) where the allegations in the FIR do not constitute a cognizable offence but constitute only a non-cognizable offence, no investigation is permitted by a police officer without an order of a Magistrate as contemplated under Section 155(2) of the Code.
(5) where the allegations made in the FIR or complaint are so absurd and inherently improbable on the basis of which no prudent person can ever reach a just conclusion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused.
(6) where there is an express legal bar engrafted in any of the provisions of the Code or the concerned Act (under which a criminal proceeding is instituted) to the institution and continuance of the proceedings and/or where there is a specific provision in the Code or the concerned Act, providing efficacious redress for the grievance of the aggrieved party.
(7) 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 accused and with a view to spite him due to private and personal grudge."
In the considered view of this Court this matter falls both in category nos.(5) and (7) mentioned hereinabove. This Court finds reason to hold that the complaint in question is inspired by malice and the version contained therein is full of high improbabilities and the continuation of the proceedings on that basis is likely to result in abuse of court's process, and therefore, the entire proceeding of complaint in question is liable to be quashed.
In this view of the matter this application is allowed and the entire proceeding of complaint in question against the accused-applicants stand quashed.
A copy of this order be certified to the lower court concerned forthwith.
Order Date :- 24.7.2018 M. Kumar