Court No. - 65
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 4896 of 2019 Petitioner :- Munana And Another Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Shahid Ali Siddiqui Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.
Hon'ble Karuna Nand Bajpayee,J. Hon'ble Ifaqat Ali Khan,J.
This writ petition has been filed seeking the quashing of F.I.R. dated 28.01.2019 registered as Case Crime No.0030 of 2019, under Section 3, 5 and 8 of U.P. Cow Slaughter Act, 1955, P.S.- Katra, District- Shahjahanpur.
Heard petitioners' counsel and learned AGA. Entire record has been perused.
Submission of counsel for petitioners is that the petitioners were not arrested on the spot and in fact, some unknown persons had committed the alleged crime but the police had falsely implicated the petitioners at the instance of their business rivals. Certain other contentions have also been raised by the petitioners' counsel which relate to disputed questions of fact. The court has also been called upon to adjudge the worth of prosecution allegations and evaluate the same on the basis of various intricacies of factual details which have been touched upon by the learned counsel. The veracity and credibility of indictment has been questioned, absence of material which may substantiate the allegations has been contended and false implication has been pleaded.
The law regarding sufficiency of grounds which may justify quashing of F.I.R. in a given case is well settled. The court has to eschew itself from embarking upon a roving enquiry into the last details of the case. It is also not advisable to adjudge whether the case shall ultimately end in submission of charge sheet and then eventually in conviction or not. Only a prima facie satisfaction of the court about the existence of sufficient ingredients constituting the offence is required in order to see whether the F.I.R. requires to be investigated or deserves quashing. The ambit of investigation into the alleged offence is an independent area of operation and does not call for interference in the same except in rarest of rare cases. The view taken in the case of Satyapal vs. State of U.P. and others, 2000
Cr.L.J. 569 which was further confirmed by another Full Bench of this Court in the case of Ajit Singh @ Muraha v. State of
U.P. and others (2006 (56) ACC 433) makes the position of law in this regard clear and this Court does not find it advisable to whittle down the power or scope of investigation in the given case. The operational liberty to collect sufficient material, if there exists any, cannot be scuttled prematurely by any uncalled for overstepping of the Court. It has to be an extremely discreet exercise.
The Apex Court decisions given in the case of R.P. Kapur Vs. State of Punjab AIR 1960 SC 866 and in the case of State of Haryana Vs. Bhajan Lal 1992 SCC(Cr.) 426 have also recognized certain categories by way of illustration which may justify the quashing of a complaint or charge sheet and the same may also be good grounds to quash the F.I.R. Some of them are akin to the illustrative examples given in the case of Smt. Nagawwa Vs. Veeranna Shivalingappa Konjalgi 1976 3 SCC 736. The cases where the allegations made against the accused in the F.I.R. or the evidence collected by the Investigating Officer do not constitute any offence or where the allegations are absurd or extremely improbable or impossible to believe or where prosecution is legally barred or where criminal proceeding is malicious and malafide instituted only with ulterior motive or grudge and vengeance alone, may be illustratively the fit cases for the High Court in which the F.I.R. or the criminal proceedings may be quashed. If a particular case falls in some such categories as recognized by the Apex Court in Bhajan Lal's case, it may justify the interference by this Court in exercise of its inherent power as provided in Code of Criminal Procedure or in exercise of its powers vested by the Constitution of India.
Illumined by the case law referred to herein above, this Court has adverted to the entire record of the case.
The perusal of the F.I.R. in question shows that the first informant, who is a Sub-Inspector of Police had got information through informer that some persons were slaughtering cows in the jungles of village Patti Bakhsh near the field of sugarcane. On this information the first informant and other police personnel reached on spot and they saw that three persons were cutting meat and two persons were packing the pieces of meat in plastic bags. When the police tried to arrest them, they escaped from there and despite efforts made by the police, they could not be arrested. However, the first informant and other police personnel had identified the accused persons which included the petitioners also. At the place of occurrence the police had recovered about seven quintals of beefs, several instruments for cutting beef such as knives, dav and wooden logs. Three skins, legs and rudiments of head of animals of cow progeny were also recovered from that place. Petitioners are named in the present F.I.R. along with three other co-accused persons. This Court also finds substance in the submissions of learned A.G.A. that the offences involved in this matter have the inherent potential to worsen into communal conflagration. Many a communal riots owe their genesis to the commission of such kind of offences. The intrinsic propensity involved in such criminal transactions is such which tends to disrupt the even fabric of social harmony which in its turn jeopardises public order and public peace, not to speak of multiple killings of innocent lives which the communal riots entail. According to learned A.G.A. it is this grave danger involved in such kind of offences which adds to the seriousness of the crime and it does not call for any soft- pedalling.
The submissions made by the petitioners' learned counsel call for determination on pure questions of fact which may be adequately discerned only through proper investigation. This Court does not deem it proper, and therefore cannot be persuaded to have a pre-trial before the actual trial begins or where the investigating agency should not be given fullest opportunity to make proper enquiry and reach at the just conclusions in the matter. This Court does not deem it proper to suffocate or trammel the ambit and scope of independent investigation into the case. A more elaborate discussion of various facts and circumstances, as they emerge from the allegations made against the accused, is being purposely avoided by the Court for the reason, lest the same might cause any prejudice to either side during investigation or trial. But it shall suffice to observe that the perusal of the record makes out prima facie offences at this stage and there appear to be sufficient ground for investigation in the case. We do not find any justification to quash the F.I.R. or the proceedings against the accused arising out of it as the case does not fall in any of the categories recognized by the Apex Court which may justify their quashing.
The prayer for quashing the same is refused as we do not see any breach of constitutional provisions or any abuse of the process of law.
The writ petition therefore stands dismissed.
Order Date :- 21.2.2019 shiv