SANDIP KAR Vs. PAMPY KAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WITH the help of this application made under Section 482 Cr. P. C. , the petitioners, who are accused in Complaint Case No. 3737/2008, pending in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, 1st Class, Kamrup, have sought for quashing of the entire complaint proceeding.

(2.) BROADLY speaking, the ground of challenge to the maintainability of the proceeding is that the complaint, in question, when examined in the light of the other materials available on record, does not disclose commission of offence under Section 498a and/or 406 IPC and, hence, taking of cognizance by the learned Court below of the offences aforementioned and its direction to issue processes against the present accused-petitioners are wholly without jurisdiction and not sustainable in law.

(3.) BEFORE entering into the merit of the petitioner's case, it is necessary to point out that the law with regard to the quashing of criminal complaint off FIR is no longer res integra. A catena of judicial decisions has settled the position of law on this aspect of the matter. I may refer to the case of R. P. Kapoor 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 561 A 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; Gajendragadkar, J. , speaking for the Court, however, 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 or FIR shows that the contents thereof, even if taken at their face value and accepted to be true in their entirety, do not disclose commission of offence, the complaint or the FIR, as the case may be, shall be quashed.