HARBINDER SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners through this Criminal Miscellaneous petition seek to have First Information Report No. 57 dated 19.6.1985 registered at Police Station Bhogpur under Sections 323/34 and 506, Indian Penal Code, quashed on the ground that the facts contained therein do not disclose any offence including the ones alleged.

(2.) THE learned counsel for the petitioners has urged that the first information report lodged against the petitioners does not disclose any offence and it has been registered under some misapprehension of legal position and, therefore, the same deserves to be quashed. On the other hand, Mr. V.K. Kataria, Advocate, appearing for the State, has argued that the offences under Sections 323/34 and 506 I.P.C., have been made out from the First Information Report and that the power of investigation so far as it vests exclusively in the police or the investigating agency is not to be interfered with by the courts and the investigating agency should be left to carry on the investigation without any interference. In support of this contention he has placed reliance on the dictum laid down in Kurukshetra University v. The State of Haryana AIR 1977 SC 2229 wherein it was held that "the inherent powers do not confer any arbitrary jurisdiction on the High Court to act according to whim or caprice. That statutory power has to be exercised sparingly, with circumspection and in the rarest of the rare case. Thus, the High Court in exercise of inherent powers under Section 482, Cr.P.C. cannot quash first information report more so when the police had not even commenced the investigation and no proceeding at all is pending in any Court in pursuance of the said FIR."

(3.) IN the present case, the investigation is being conducted by the investigating agency. The learned State counsel has given an undertaking that the challan in the case will be put in the court within a reasonable time and the petitioner will be within his right to persuade the trial court on the basis of the evidence on record on that no Criminal case was made out against him and even if the trial court passes some unsustainable order, the same would be open to challenge in the High Court in accordance with law.