BHASKAR SEAL Vs. ANJALI KALITA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY making this application under Section 482/483 Cr. P. C. read with Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner, who is an accused in the Complaint Case No. 54c/200, which is pending in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, 1st Class, Bajali, District Barpeta, has approached this Court for quashing of the complaint.

(2.) I have perused the materials on record including the complaint, in question. I have heard Mr. M. U. Mahmud, learned counsel, appearing on behalf of the accused-petitioner, and Mr. H. N. Sarma, learned Senior counsel for the complaint-opposite party.

(3.) THE law with regard to quashing of criminal complaint is no longer res integra. A catena of judicial decisions have settled the position of law on this aspect of the matter. I may refer to the case of R. P. Kapur Vs. State of Punjab (AIR 1960 SC 866), wherein the question, which arose for consideration was whether a first information report can be quashed under Section 561a of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898. The Court held, on the facts before it, that no case for quashing of the proceeding was made out; but Gajendragadkar, J, speaking for the Court observed that though, ordinarily, criminal proceedings instituted against an accused must be tried under the provisions of the Code, there are some categories of cases, where the inherent jurisdiction of the Court can and should be exercised for quashing the proceedings. One such category, according to the Court, consists of cases, where the allegations in the FIR or the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, do not constitute the offence alleged; in such cases, no question of appreciating evidence arises and it is a matter merely of looking at the FIR or the complaint in order to decide whether the offence alleged is disclosed or not. In such cases, said the Court, it would be legitimate for the High Court to hold that it would be manifestly unjust to allow the process of the criminal Court to be issued against the accused. From the case of R. P. Kapoor (supra), it becomes abundantly clear that when a mere look into the contents of a complaint shows that the contents of the complaint, even if taken at their face value and accepted to be true in their entirety, do not disclose commission of offence, the complaint shall be quashed. As a corollary to what has been discussed above, it is also clear that if the contents of the complaint constitute offence, such a complaint cannot be quashed.