MANJIT SINGH Vs. UNION TERRITORY CHANDIGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner through the present criminal miscellaneous petition seeks to have the First Information Report No. 250/1985 registered at Police Station East Chandigarh under section 506, Indian Penal Code, quashed on the ground that the facts contained therein do not disclose any offence including the one alleged.

(2.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner has urged that the first information report lodged against the petitioner 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, the learned counsel for the State has argued that an offence under Section 506/I.P.C has 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 is not to be interfered with by the courts and the investigating agency should be left to carry on the investigation without any interference.

(3.) IN Kurukshetra University v. The State of Haryana, AIR 1977 S.C. 2229, the law was laid as under: "Inherent powers do not confer an 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 rare cases. Thus, the High Court in exercise of inherent powers under section 482, Criminal Procedure Code, 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 impursuance of the said F.I.R" Relying on the dictum laid down in Kurukshetra University's case (supra), it can be safely concluded that normally the proceedings during investigation should not be quashed so as to bar the normal process of the investigation as provided under the Code of Criminal Procedure. However, if a fool -proof case is made out that by protracted investigation, the process of the court in being abused and the same is likely to result in depriving the accused of his valuable right to defend the case or to cross examine the witnesses etc., the extreme step of quashing the proceedings can be taken. In the present case, the investigation is being stalled because of the non -appearance of the petitioner before the police for interrogation purpose. The learned State counsel has submitted that the challan in this case will be put in the court a reasonable time on the arrest of the accused and the petitioner will be within his right to persuade the trial court on the basis of the evidence on record 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.