SAT SARUP SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITIONERS through present petition filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seek quashing of the F.I.R. No. 45 dated 8th December, 1992, under Sections 457/380 of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to Police Station City, Fazilka. The F.I.R. sought to be quashed runs thus :-

(2.) THE case of the petitioners is that they are persons of high status inasmuch as that petitioner No. 1 was a candidate for M.L.A. in General Assembly Elections in June 1992 and the petitioner No. 2 is a doctor at Fazilka with good medical practice to his credit in his own clinic. There was a long standing dispute between the complainant Ashok Kumar tenant with petitioner No. 2 as no rent was paid to the petitioner since the year 1989. Another dispute arose between the landlord and the tenant. However, there was a settlement in the Police Station with the intervention of respectable citizens that the tenant would pay the entire due rent immediately and he will vacate the shop within five years. The tenant did not pay anything and was thus reminded of his obligation to pay the rent. In the month of November 1992 petitioner No. 2 warned the complainant to pay the entire rent which was more than three years, failing which he was to seek the redressal of his grievance from a competent Court of law. Fearing recovery of the rent or proceedings for vacation of shop, the case of the petitioner is, that the complainant-tenant with the help of a Balbir Singh concocted a false case to keep it as a handle over the petitioner so as not to proceed against him in any kind of proceedings in any Court.

(3.) AFTER hearing the learned Counsel for the parties, this Court finds no merit in either of the submissions noticed above. In so far as that no offence being disclosed from the reading of the F.I.R. is concerned suffice it to say that F.I.R. is not encyclopaedia of the entire prosecution version. The learned Assistant Advocate General assisted by the Counsel representing the complainant read out to me the statements of various persons recorded under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is clearly borne out from the statements that the accused have stolen the articles, a reference of which has been made in the F.I.R. Not only that, some articles alleged to have been stolen were even recovered from the accused. Merely because there has been a long standing dispute between petitioner No. 2 and the complainant who happened to be a tenant of the accused, in considered view of this Court, would not in itself be enough to conclude that the entire prosecution version is false and concocted. It may be so, but no finding can be recorded on the scanty material as available before this Court and the matter can be decided only after recording evidence. The judgments that have been relied and the reference of which has been given above cannot give any assistance to petitioners as all the matters were decided in the peculiar facts and circumstances available in the said cases.