Akansha Upadhyay
Published on – 29 November 2022 at 21:34 IST
The Supreme Court observed that criminal proceedings are liable to be quashed when the basis of the complaint registered in the FIR does not disclose any act of the accused or their involvement in the offence.
In this case, an FIR was registered against the accused and a charge sheet was filed under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 504, 506, 448, 387 IPC.
He approached the Allahabad High Court seeking quashing of the FIR/Chargesheet. As soon as the High Court rejected it, he approached the Supreme Court.
In appeal, a bench of Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice CT Ravikumar observed that the High Court has not examined what the complaint was and how the present accused are in any way connected with the alleged offence.
The court then referred to the guidelines issued in State of Haryana and Others v. Bhajan Lal and Others especially the following categories:
(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.
(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.
It noted that the present case is fully covered by categories (1) and (3)
“A bare perusal of the complaint on the basis of which FIR came to be registered at the instance of the de-facto Complainant/second Appellants Participation in the Respondent does not disclose any act of the present or their commission of crime. They are neither concerned with the registered sale deed dated 4th May, 1977 nor the later sale deed executed in favour of complainant the by de-facto Shravan Kumar Gupta dated 22nd December, 2018, nor in possession of the subject property nor are parties to the civil proceedings….the document or are facilitators or witness to the document in reference to which the complaint has been made for cheating and committing forgery or have played any role in delivery of possession of the subject property in question…”
“….What it appears is that the de-facto complainant has implicated the present appellants being members of the family to put pressure for obtaining possession of the subject property and to settle the civil dispute which is pending between Vinod Kumar Gupta, Shravan Kumar Gupta and the de-facto complainant.”,
Hence, the court allowed the appeal filed by the appellant party.
Case Title- Ramesh Chandra Gupta vs State of UP