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Showing contexts for: criminal procedure code 340 in Praveen Malpani vs M. D'Costa W/O Francis D'Costa on 19 August, 1992Matching Fragments
3. In reply the plea of mistake about the date of hearing is characterised as improbable. The Court had reopened on 12-11-1991 after the Diwali vacation and though on the date the court did not transact business due to the sad demise of Shri Panna Lal Shrivastava, Advocate, Court's office was working and still the petitioner did not make any attempt to know the fate of the appeal. Only after the impugned order was passed on 13-11-1991, the petitioner applied for setting aside the ex parte order. Obviously, the petitioner had no ground to urge against this appeal. He, therefore, deliberately avoided appearing before the Court and has now made this petition on false grounds. A petition under Section 482 is tenable only where the abuse of the process of the Court is writ large or intervention for securing ends of justice is warranted. None of these conditions exist in the case. In view of the clear documentary evidence that the petitioner has given false statement during proceeding under Section 145 of the Criminal Procedure Code an enquiry in this behalf under Section 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code is necessary in the ends of justice.
6. It was argued that in view of the observations recorded in the Supreme Court's order in the S.L.P., the petitioner has yet to exercise his discretion to file a review petition and, therefore, no direction can be given to the S.D.M. to hold an inquiry against the petitioner under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code. Perusal of the order passed by the Supreme Court in the S.L.P. makes it abundantly clear that there is nothing therein to prevent this Court from passing a final order directing the learned S.D.M to hold an inquiry under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code.
7. The gratitude this Court owed to applicant's learned counsel for not agitating the correctness of the finding in the impugned judgment that pendency of a suit did not create a bar under Section 10, Civil Procedure Code to an inquiry being held under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code thawed with his submission that such an inquiry should not be permitted to be held pending disposal of petitioner's suit for specific performance of contract against the respondent wherein genuineness of respondent's receipts dated 28-3-1989 to 31-3-1989 is to be decided. In view of the irreconcilable inconsistency between petitioner's statement before the S.D.M. on 9-8-1990 and his affidavit dated 29-4-1989 filed in the Court of District Judge in relation to a Civil Suit filed by the respondent the inference is irresistible that his statement before the S.D.M. was untrue to his knowledge. In Mayapur Sree Chaitanya Math and Ors. v. Sachidananda Brahmachari and Ors., 1984 Cri. L.J. 1692, cited by applicant's learned counsel was a case where the defendant filed certain documents to support his claim of shebaitship before the High Court which were challenged as forged by the plaintiff. Then a suit was filed in which the genuineness of the said document was in issue. The plaintiff fought the suit for five years from 1978 till 1983. He even tried to compromise with the defendant who never admitted the falsity of those documents and then in 1983 the plaintiff moved an application for initiating proceedings under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code and in that context it was held that initiation of such proceeding pending disposal of the civil suit would amount to abuse of the process of the Court. In the present case the petitioner has admitted falsity of the receipts in his affidavit and there has been no delay in praying for initiating of proceedings under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code. As such, the petitioner does not derive any help from the said citation. Thus, there appears to be a clear case for holding an inquiry under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code against him. The pendency of the Civil Suit filed by the petitioner against the respondent involving the issue of the genuineness of the allegedly forged receipts purported to have been executed by the respondent does not present any legal obstacle for initiation of such inquiry. For old obvious reasons such an inquiry intended to keep the flow of Nyay Ganga free of pollution should not be over delayed.
9. Where the exercise amounts to serving the personal revenge of a party and the facts and circumstances do not justify action to advance the public cause of administration of justice and its purity the court will certainly be loathe to hold an enquiry under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code. The entire criminal justice system is built on the edifice of the concept of public interest. But can it be said that when a murderer or rapist is convicted and sentenced the sense of personal revenge of those who suffered personal loss or injury as a result of the crime is not satisfied ? Thus it is manifest that satisfaction of the sense of personal revenge and the cause of public interest may coincide or be at variance depending upon the facts and circumstances of each case. Where they are at variance with each other no enquiry under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code will be held to satisfy some one's personal revenge. Where they overlap enquiry under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code will not be eschewed merely because the same will also entail serving the urge of personal revenge of some aggrieved party. Here we find the petitioner having indulged in blatant falsehood in supporting his case before the S.D.M. against the property interest of a lady who resides in England and comes to India only occasionally. In his statement before the S.D.M on oath this petitioner has claimed execution by the respondent of receipts on dates when she was not in India. An order in petitioner's favour was passed on the basis of such false statement. Subsequently confronted with irrefutable evidence in the suit presented by the lady showing her absence in the country on the dates when the receipts were alleged to have been executed, the petitioner admits the fact that the receipts were not executed on those dates, therefore faced with the prospect of imminent prosecution he adopts the well-known strategy of buying time by allowing the appeal to be decided ex parte and then seeking repeated adjournments in the appellate court and ultimately sans waiting for the outcome by filing this petition. Here also instead of expressing remorse and being repentant of his conduct he has tried to assert that what he stated before the S.D.M. was not false. He boasts of his high lineage and derides the respondent as owner of a 'bungalia'. All this unmistakably shows that in wider interests of administration of justice an inquiry against him under Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code, is pre-eminently warranted. And in the process if respondent's personal sense of vengeance is also satisfied so be it.