Darshan Kumar vs State of Punjab

S.S. Dewan, J.

The two petitions (Crl. Misc. 3091/M and 3371/M of 1983 have been filed by the petitioners under S. 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, the Code), for quashing the First Information report No. 93 registered at Police Station Ferozepore on 30.4.1983, at the instance of Smt. Kiran Bala. This order will dispose of both the petitions.

According to the allegations made in the First Information Report it appears that Smt. Kiran Bala lodged this report against the petitioners and others under Ss. 420, 109 and 120B Indian Penal Code. It is alleged therein that she had appeared in her. M.A. Final Examination in the month of April, 1982 and her parents were in search of a suitable match for her when Smt. Sheela Wanti and her son Darshan Kumar came forward with a proposal for lending her hand to Anil Kumar who was a doctor by profession and was employed in Iran. Anil Kumar the grandson of smt. Sheela Wanti. After initial suggestion having been made at Ludhiana at the house of Sat Pal, brother of Narinder Mohan, it was represented by all the accusedpetitioners on 23.4.1982 at Ferozepor that Dr. Anil Kumar was a bachelor and willing to marry with Kiran Bala and that during the negotiations, the petitioners entered into a conspiracy and they asked for consideration of marrige with Anil Kumar in the shape of cash, ornaments, clothes and entertainment expenses. It is said that the father of Kiran Bala fell pray to the inducement of the petitioners and accepted the proposal and on that day, as a part of consideration, he gave one pound, one silver thal and Rs. 1100/ in cash in the performance of a ceremony called as Roka. At that time, it was suggested on behalf of the petitioners that soon after the marriage, which was fixed for 24.5.1982, the couple would be leaving for Iran and a passport for Kiran Bala might be arranged. Dr. Anil Kumar accused represented to the father of Kiran bala that the passport had to be obtained by Kiran Bala as the wife of Anil Kumar and only then visa could be obtained by Kiran Bala for entry into Iran. The marriage ceremony was, however, performed according to Vedic rites at Ferozepor on 24.5.1982. After Saptpadi had been performed, jewellery consisting of 20 gold bangles (20 tolas), 3 karas gold (5 tolas) 5 gold sets (7/8 tolas each), 2 diamond tops 2 writ watches etc. besides cash worth Rs. 10 lacs were entrusted to Sardari Lal and Anil Kumar accused while the other accused joined hands in receiving the aforesaid cash, ornaments and other articles as consideration for the marrige. Dr. Anil Kumar took the complainant to Hydrabad and Sri Lanka for honeymooning. From Sri Lanka the couple returned to Bangalore on 15.6.1982 and on the following day Dr. Anil Kumar quietly left for Iran having deprived the complainant of all cash, jewellery and other articles as stated above. On 5.4.1983, the complainant''s father went to Bangalore accompanied by bother relatives and friends to persuade the accused for the rehabilitation of the complainant but when the complainant party met the colleagues of the accused at Bangalore, it transpired that Dr. Anil Kumar was already married with an iranian girl. The fact of Dr. Anil Kumar''s marriage with an Iranian girl was further got confirmed from the Iranian Embassy. The case of the complainant party is that the whole transaction detailed above revealed that from the very beginning, the intention of the accusedparty, in conspiracy with each other, was to grab money and property and they induced the complainant''s parents to part with the aforesaid property on the false representation that the complainant would be taken as wife of Dr. Anil Kumar but the intention of the accused was to cause loss and wrongful gain to themselves by false inducement which attracted the application of S. 420, Indian Penal Code. On the basis of these allegations, the case was registered against the accused under Ss. 420, 109 and 120B. Indian Penal Code.

Mr. K.S. Thapar, learned counsel for the petitioners had strenuously urged that from the mere perusal of the first information report it is apparent that the allegations made are entirely false, frivolous and malicious; that even if these allegations are taken to be correct, no cognizable offence is disclosed and that the police has started investigation unnecessarily in order to harass the family members of the petitioners. He urged that no offence whatsoever has been made out against the petitioners and, therefore, the first information report deserves to be quashed. Emphatic reliance in support of this proposition has been placed on the Full Bench decision in Vinod Kumar Sethi and others v. State of Punjab and another, A.I.R. 1912 Punjab and Haryana, 372 and also in Patna Improvement Trust v. Smt. Lakshmi Devi and others, 1963 S.C.R. Supp. (2), 812.

In Vinod Kumar Seth''s case (supra) it was held :

"That though the High Court would have the inherent jurisdiction to quash the investigation process in proper case, it does not mean that this power is to be exercised indiscriminately. The requisite preconditions for the exercise of the power must be satisfied. Without being exhaustive these may be briefly summarised as

(i) when the first information report even if accepted as true, discloses no reasonable suspicion of the commission of a cognizable offence;

(ii) when the materials subsequently collected in the course of an investigation further disclose no such cognizable offence at all;

(iii) when the continuation of such investigation would amount to an abuse of power by the police thus necessitating interference in the ends of justice; and

(iv) that even if the first information report or its subsequent investigation purports to raise a suspicion of a cognizable offence, the High Court can still quash if it is convinced that the power of investigation has been exercise mala fide."

In Patna Improvement Trust''s case, (supra) the question for determination was whether the Bihar Town Planning and Improvement Trust Act, 1951 (Act 35, 1951) replaced the Land Acquisition Act (1 of 1894) in the matter of acquisition of land for the said Trust and whether the notification issued by the Government of Bihar under Ss. 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act were valid, after the Bihar Act had come into force. The High Court held the notifications of the State Government ultra vires and illegal, on the principle of generalia specialibus non derogant and also that if a statute directs a thing to be done in a certain way that thing shall not, even if there be no negative words, be done in any other way.

As against this, reliance has been placed by the learned counsel for the State on few judgments of their Lordships of the Supreme Court. In Jehan Singh v. Delhi Administration, A.I.R. 1974 S.C. 1146, it was held that where at the date of the filing of the petition for quashing the proceedings, no chargesheet or complaint has been laid in the Court and the matter is only at the stage of investigation by the Police, the Court cannot, in the exercise of its inherent jurisdiction, interfere with the statutory powers of the Police to investigate into the alleged offence and quash the proceedings. It also held that the Court at that stage cannot appraise the evidence collected by the Police during investigation.

In case Kurukshetra University and another v. State of Haryana and another, 1977 CR.L.T. 383, the law was laid down as under :

"Held, that it surprises us in the extreme that the High Court thought that in the exercise of its inherent powers under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure it could quash a First Information Report. The Police had not even commenced investigation into the complaint filed by the Warden of the University and no proceeding at all was pending in any Court in pursuance of the F.I.R. It ought to be realized that inherent powers do not confer an arbitrary jurisdiction on the High Court to act according to whim or caprice. The statutory powers has to be exercise sparingly, with circumspection and in the rarest of rare cases."

From a close perusal of the two decisions of their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Jehan Singh''s case (supra) and Kurukshetra University and another'' case (supra), it is evident that the High Court should not quash the proceeding in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction so long as the case is under investigation.

After going through the decisions relied upon on both sides, 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. However if a foolproof case is made out that by protracted investigation, the process of the Court is being abused and the same was likely to result in depriving the accused of his valuable right to defend the case or to crossexamine the witness etc., the extreme step of quashing the proceedings can be taken. In the present case, undoubtedly the first information report was registered on 30.4.1983 and the present petitions were filed on 2.6.1983 and 4.7.1983 but the investigation in the case has not been stayed. It is not the case of the petitioners that some delay has been caused in completing the investigation and in putting in the challan in court but the delay is not such that it is possible to come to the conclusion that a case of the abuse of the process of court is made out.

In view of the above discussion, both the petitions are dismissed.