NAVEEN SOOD Vs. STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN the instant petition instituted under the provisions of Section 482 Cr.P.C., a prayer is made by the petitioners to quash and set aside FIR No. 75 of 2014, registered in Police Station, Kangra, H.P., for theirs having allegedly committed offences under Sections 498A/406/34 IPC. Before proceeding to record findings and arrive at conclusions in the instant petition, it is deemed apt and imperative to extract the provisions of 498 -A IPC: -

(2.) THE import of the term 'cruelty' existing in the Section 498 -A IPC, whose provisions, are extracted hereinabove, and which 'cruelty' is alleged to have been perpetrated upon the complainant by the petitioners herein is of its being constituted by any willful conduct of such a nature as is likely to drive a woman to commit suicide or its likely to cause grave injury and danger to her life, limb or health, besides harassment of a woman where such harassment is with a view to coerce her to comply with any unlawful demand for any property or valuable security or is on account of failure by her or any person related to her to meet such demand.

(3.) BEARING in mind the hereinabove extracted provisions of Section 498 -A IPC, whose ingredients have to be prima -facie at this stage established to have been accomplished as also bearing in mind the effulgence of light shed by the relevant paragraph of the apt decision of Hon'ble Apex Court qua the exercise of jurisdiction by this Court in a petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C., in as much, as its contemplating therein that only when the allegations comprised in the FIR taken in their entirety constitute an offence, as also when the allegations are specific and unambiguous allegations and theirs constitute an offence within the parameters of the penal provisions of law would the jurisdiction vested in this Court under Section 482 Cr.P.C. be not available to be exercised by this Court. Contrarily in case the allegations elucidated in the FIR which purportedly constitute an offence under the relevant and apt provisions of penal laws do not satisfy the ingredients of the provisions of the penal laws under which the allegations purportedly constitute an offence or when the allegations are unspecific and ambiguous, in that event this court would be actuated to exercise jurisdiction vested in it under Section 482 Cr.P.C. Now with this Court having unraveled the ingredients which are to be accomplished or satiated for an offence being constituted under Section 498 IPC, as, also it having held that in case such allegations do not satisfy or accomplish the ingredients for constituting such allegations to be an offence under Section 498 -A IPC, as, also when the allegations are unspecific and ambiguous, in that event this Court would proceed to quash the FIR. It is now imperative to incisively with circumspection traverse through the allegations comprised in the FIR. It is elucidated in the FIR that the complainant had entered into a wedlock in the year 2009. In the FIR she avers that after marriage the accused/petitioners herein behaved well with her for sometime and thereafter their attitude towards her started changing. Despite the intervention of the mediator, the accused/petitioners herein continued to harass her. Besides she alleges that the accused -petitioners herein physically and mentally harassed her, compelling her to commit suicide. She proceeds to allege that in September, 2011 she was thrown out from her matrimonial home and thereafter she started living separately with her husband in a quarter at Ghukari. She further alleges that at that place her husband threatened her with dire consequences. She continues to spell out in the FIR that at the instance of her husband she shifted to another quarter at some other place. She narrates that During November, 2013, she had gone to her parents and from there she called her husband to retrieve her to her matrimonial home. However he refused to bring her back on the score that he has no need for her. He further told her that he had no money to bear her expenses. She further narrates in the FIR that she had gone to her in -laws and asked for her jewellery , however her demand was not acceded to. Prima -facie on a reading of allegations made by the complainant against the petitioners herein unfold the factum of hers living separately with her husband since 2009 to 2011, hers having been subjected to mental and physical cruelty. However, the acts constituting mental and physical cruelty remained un -complained, since 2011 till the institution of an FIR qua the acts purportedly constituting an offence under the provisions of Section 498 -A IPC having been complained by the complainant on 10.4.2014. As such prima -facie the un -explained delay itself has a sequelling effect in rendering the allegations leveled by the complainant against the petitioners herein and theirs purportedly constituting an offence under Section 498A IPC to be per se smeared with concoction as well as prevarication. Even otherwise dehors the unexplained delay in the lodging of the complaint by the complainant and its sequelling an adverse inference qua the truthfulness of the allegations comprised in it, a bare reading of the allegations comprised in the FIR unearth the factum of the allegations therein omitting to convey the magnitude and enormity of the physical and mental cruelty perpetrated on her person by the accused nor also hence when the enormity of the physical and mental cruelty has remained un -displayed in the FIR, it can not be hence concluded that it was of such a nature so as to drive her to commit suicide. Besides, in the absence of the enormity and magnitude of the cruelty having been spelt out in the FIR, it cannot be concluded that the physical and mental cruelty as purportedly meted to the complainant by the accused/petitioners herein was intended to cause injury and danger to her life, limb or health. Consequently, with the allegations leveled against the accused/petitioners herein having not satiated or accomplished the ingredients for constituting an offence under Section 498A IPC nor as such obviously the attraction of the ingredients of the offence alleged against the petitioners herein in the FIR have been begotten or theirs having remained un -satiated for abysmal want of narration in the FIR qua the fact that the petitioners herein subjected the complainant to harassment with a view to coerce her to meet their unlawful demand, constrains this Court to aptly conclude that the ingredients enshrined in Section 498 -B IPC remain unaccomplished or un -satiated.