Malkhan Singh and others. vs State of Haryana .

A.P. Chowdhri, J.

Private respondent No. 2 filed a complaint under Sections 406 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code on January 15, 1988, against the petitioners. She was married with Malkhan Singh petitioner No. 1 on May 8, 1970. Petitioner No. 2 is Malkhan Singh''s father, petitioners Nos. 3 and 4 are his brothers, petitioner No. 5 is his mother and petitioner No. 6 is wife of Jangi Ram petitioner No. 3.

The parents and other relations of Suit. Krishna Devi gave her dowry and presents mentioned in the list annexed with the complaint. The aforesaid dowry articles were entrusted to the above named accused. The relations between Smt. Krishna Devi and her husband became estranged. On an application made by the wife, maintenance allowance at the rate of Rs. 100/ per mensem to the wife and Rs. 50/ per mensem to a minor daughter was fixed by order Annexure P3 dated July 30, 1981. The allowances are being paid since 11.11.1975. Husband''s petition under section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, filed on August 19, 1982, was dismissed on January 27, 1983. Husband''s petition under section 13 was dismissed on January 31, 1984. FAO against the said dismissal was dismissed by a Division Bench of this Court on July 19, 1984.

After recording preliminary evidence in the complaint, the learned Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Kaithal, summoned the petitioners by order dated May 16, 1988. The petitioners have filed the present petition for quashing the complaint as well as the summoning order as an abuse of the process of the Court.

Shri Akash Jain, learned counsel for private respondent No. 2, raised a preliminary objection that one of the petitioners had filed a revision against the summoning order which was dismissed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge by his order dated April 7, 1989. That being so, the present petition could not be filed by merely describing the same as a petition under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure instead of a second revision. Mr. Jain relied on Rajan Kumar Manchanda v. State of Karnataka, 1988(2) Recent CR 662 (S.C.) and Charanjit Singh v. Gursharan Kaur, 1990(1) Recent CR 584 : 1990 Cri. L.J. 1264 (D.B.) .

Shri Suvir Sehgal, learned counsel for the petitioners, on the other hand, contended that inherent powers of the High Court under section 482 can be invoked even after exhausting the remedy of revision. He relied on Rai Kapoor and others v. The State (Delhi Admn.) and others, AIR 1980 SC 258. A Division Bench of this Court directly dealt with the question whether the provisions of section 397(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure would operate as a bar to the exercise of inherent powers of the High Court under section 482 of the Code. The learned Judges noticed all the relevant decisions including the authorities cited at the Bar in the present case by the learned counsel for both the parties and succinctly summed up the legal position in paragraph 17 in the following words :

"The legal proposition that thus emerges is that the provisions of Section 397 of the Code do not constitute or operate as a bar to the exercise by the High Court of its inherent powers under Section 482 of the Code. The limitation here, as observed in Raj Kapoor''s case, 1980 CrI. LJ 202 (SC) is selfrestraint and no more. It must, of course, be observed that where an order is amenable to revision, the order of the revisional court should be interfered with very sparingly and that too only for the purposes as envisaged by Section 482 of the Code. Such cases would clearly be few and far between."

Technically speaking, therefore, the exercise of revisional jurisdiction by the Court of Session does not by itself oust the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court under section 482 but such orders are interfered with only in rarest of rare cases. Coming to the case in hand, what remains to be considered is whether the facts and circumstances justify the exercise of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. In other words, the question is whether the facts and circumstances made out the present case as of the requisite type.

After hearing learned counsel for both the parties, I am unable to hold that the facts and circumstances of the present case make out a case for invoking the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. Accordingly the petition fails and the same is dismissed. The parties through their counsel are directed to appear before the trial Court on February 14, 1991, for further proceedings according to law.