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4. It is case of the applicants that complaint case no. 112879/2024 is the genesis of the F.I.R. lodged by opposite party no. 2 under Sections 354, 504, 506, 341, I.P.C., which after due investigation resulted in final report No. 1 of 2023 and protest application moved by opposite party No. 2 has been wrongly treated as 'complaint' by the learned court below in violation of law propounded by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Vishnu Kumar Tiwari v. State of U.P., (2019) 8 SCC 27, wherein the procedure has been explained, which is to be adopted by the Magistrate while dealing with the protest application.

5. The F.I.R. was registered at Case Crime No. 298 dated 30.09.2023 under Sections 354, 504, 506, 341, I.P.C. by opposite party No. 2. On 25.08.2023, a case was fixed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (Customs), Lucknow, the applicants and wife of applicant No. 2 appeared before the court in morning around 10.30 a.m. and since the Members of the Bar were abstaining from work, the next date was fixed with order to prepare the copies of the compliance of Section 207 Cr.P.C., as such the applicants after making their attendance left the court premises at around 11 a.m. It appears that the opposite party No. 2 visited the court at around 2.00 p.m. and coming to know that applicants and wife of applicant No. 2 have marked their attendance and had already left, she got an opportunity to fabricate a fictitious story against the applicants. The investigating officer after investigation, i.e. after recording the statements of witnesses as well as after collecting the other documents found that applicants could not have been charged, therefore, he filed a final report on 28.12.2023. The opposite party no. 2 filed a protest application against the final report on 24.10.2024. The Magistrate rejected the final report on 13.11.2024 and directed the protest application to be registered as 'complaint' and also directed for issuance of notice to the applicants.

7. It is further submitted by learned counsel for the applicants that the court below failed to consider the fact that in the instant case the protest application cannot be treated as complaint for the reason that the protest application neither had any material apart from alleged case diary nor the names of witnesses were disclosed in the said application, as such the order dated 13.11.2024 rejecting the final report and treating the protest application as complaint suffers from manifest error of law.

11. After going through the record I find that there is prayer for further investigation in the protest application and the same is also not supported by any witness. If the protest petition fulfills the requirement of a complaint, the Magistrate may treat the protest petition as a complaint and deal with the same as required under Section 200, read with Section 202 Cr.P.C., however, in the instant case there is no list of witnesses, the prayer in the protest petition is to set aside the final report and to allow the application against the final report. The question before this court is whether such application filed by the opposite party No. 2 could have been treated as complaint, has been answered by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Vishnu Kumar Tiwari (supra) and Mukhtar Zaidi (supra), therefore, the application is allowed. Complaint case no. 112879/2024, including the order dated 13.11.2024 by means of which the protest application has been treated as complaint and the summoning order dated 22.09.2025 under section 354, 504, 506, 341 I.P.C., pending in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate-V, Court no. 29, Lucknow, are hereby quashed.