Recently, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice MR Shah in Sau. Kamal Shivaji Pokarnekar v. The State of Maharashtra1 held that crook lawsuits could not be quashed simply because the allegations made therein appear of a civil nature.
Brief background
The Appellant, in this situation, filed a complaint in 2008 and accused the Respondents of forgery and preparing fake files. The grievance changed into sent for investigation, and the police submitted a document declaring that the matter appeared to be of a civil nature. However, the Trial Court directed the issuance of the system to the Respondents. The High Court of Bombay set aside the system issued with the aid of the Trial Court according to its powers under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (“CrPC”) at the ground that the dispute changed into a civil nature. Crook court cases towards the Respondents could be an abuse of the process of regulation. Section 482 CrPC is the inherent electricity of the High Court concerning crook court cases. The High Court can inter alia quash crook proceedings to save you the abuse of the court system and secure the ends of justice beneath this provision.
What the Court held
The Supreme Court reiterated the settled position of law that the Magistrate must not undertake any steps to decide whether or not the substances on file would lead to a conviction or now not at the degree of taking consciousness of offense and issuing the conviction summons. The standard that the court prescribes for quashing of criminal proceedings is if, on perusal of the criticism, the courtroom can come to an advantageous dedication that the offense alleged has been made out, then the court should no longer quash the equal. However, in prescribing such well-known, the courtroom additionally attaches a caveat that offenses need to be made out from the grievance on a prima facie basis. The identity should not entail any meticulous analysis of the case.
The Supreme Court emphasized the ideas laid down in two of its previous decisions: State of Karnataka v. M. Devendrappa2 and Indian Oil Corporation v. NEPC India Ltd. & Ors.3. It held that quashing of criminal court cases is referred to as for best. At the same time, the criticism does not expose any offense, or the grievance is frivolous, vexatious, or oppressive. The Supreme Court, in addition, clarified that defenses to be had throughout a trial and statistics/aspects whose status quo all through the trial might also cause acquittal can’t shape the idea of quashing a criminal criticism.
The Division Bench also made the key commentary that crook court cases cannot be quashed most effectively because the allegations made therein appear of a civil nature if the elements of the alleged offense are prima facie made out in the grievance. Based on the above concerns, the High Court’s judgment becomes set apart through the Supreme Court.
Analysis and the manner ahead
A growing tendency in business circles to transform merely civil disputes into crook cases has been discovered beyond a few years.4 This is as a consequence of a standard impression that civil regulation remedies are time-ingesting and do now not thoroughly protect the rights and interests of residents. There is likewise an impact that if someone is entangled in a criminal case, the probability of imminent agreement of the dispute increases. Efforts through litigants to settle civil disputes and claims, which do not involve any crook offense, by using pressure through criminal prosecution have been seriously criticized and discouraged through courts.
Five Courts have with no trouble used their energy to quash such vexatious criminal proceedings below Section 482 CrPC. The Supreme Court has held that a criminal complaint ought to be quashed when the matter is essentially civil in nature and has been given a cloak of a crook offense because the continuation of such court cases will amount to an abuse of manner of the court docket.6
In the above context, it will become vital to realize that regularly valid grievances of litigants can be unnoticed via courts eager to quash criminal lawsuits having certain characteristics of civil nature, sometimes even without attributing any reasons for the same.7 This judgment of the Supreme Court attempts to emphasize the rights of such valid litigants to pursue criminal remedies, even at the same time balancing it in opposition to the proper of people to be loose from frivolous criminal lawsuits.
The judgment serves to behave as a restraint at the potential of the courts to set apart crook proceedings completely on the basis that the allegations seem like of a civil nature and hence a court docket can quash criminal court cases best about the willpower that the matter is largely civil in nature and has been given a cloak of a criminal offense. Therefore, this judgment raises the brink for quashing of crook complaints and ensures that a blanket quashing of proceedings does not take location. While the technique is laudable, it remains visible as to how this judgment is used, and study to mission petitions filed earlier than High Courts for in search of quashing of crook lawsuits, even wherein the dispute between the parties has a civil bearing.
