Court No. - 48
Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 17592 of 2018
Applicant :- Veerendra And Anr Opposite Party :- State Of U.P. And Anr Counsel for Applicant :- Vijay Tripathi Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.
Hon'ble Karuna Nand Bajpayee,J.
This application u/s 482 Cr.P.C. has been filed seeking the quashing of the entire proceedings as well as the impugned cognizance order dated 1.2.2018 in Case No. 605 of 2018, arising out of Case Crime No. 259 of 2017, State vs. Veerendra and others, under Sections 323, 504, 506, 354(B) I.P.C., P.S.- Kagaraul, District- Agra, pending in the Court of A.C.J.M. 10th, Agra.
Heard applicants' counsel and learned AGA. Entire record has been perused.
Contention of learned counsel for the applicants is that the first informant is the wife of brother of the applicant no. 1 and real aunty of the applicant no. 2. It has been further submitted that on account of a property dispute the present F.I.R. has been lodged and the ill motive of the informant is apparent on the face of record. Submission is that the learned Magistrate has taken cognizance and the summoning order has been passed without applying judicial application of mind. It has been further submitted that the opposite party no. 2 is aged about 55 years and she has lodged the F.I.R. under Section 354B I.P.C. against her real nephew and brother-in- law for creating pressure upon them to withdraw the civil litigation pending between them. Certain other contentions have been raised by the applicants' counsel which relate to disputed questions of fact. The court has also been called upon to adjudge the testimonial worth of prosecution evidence 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 material furnished on behalf of the prosecution has been questioned and false implication has been pleaded.
The law regarding sufficiency of material which may justify the summoning of accused and also the court's decision to proceed against him 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 conviction or not. Only a prima facie satisfaction of the court about the existence of sufficient ground to proceed in the matter is required.
Through a catena of decisions given by Hon'ble Apex Court this legal aspect has been expatiated upon at length and the law that has evolved over a period of several decades is too well settled. The cases of (1) Chandra Deo Singh Vs. Prokash Chandra Bose AIR 1963 SC 1430 , (2) Vadilal Panchal Vs. Dattatraya Dulaji Ghadigaonker AIR 1960 SC 1113 and (3) Smt. Nagawwa Vs. Veeranna Shivalingappa Konjalgi 1976 3 SCC 736 may be usefully referred to in this regard.
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. Some of them are akin to the illustrative examples given in the above referred case of Smt. Nagawwa Vs. Veeranna Shivalingappa Konjalgi 1976 3 SCC 736. The cases where the allegations made against the accused or the evidence collected by the Investigating Officer do not constitute any offence or where the allegations are absurd or extremely improbable impossible to believe or where prosecution is legally barred or where criminal proceeding is malicious and malafide instituted with ulterior motive of grudge and vengeance alone may be the fit cases for the High Court in which the criminal proceedings may be quashed. Hon'ble Apex Court in Bhajan Lal's case has recognized certain categories in which Section-482 of Cr.P.C. or Article-226 of the Constitution may be successfully invoked.
Illumined by the case law referred to herein above, this Court has adverted to the entire record of the case.
As per the First Information Report lodged by opposite party no. 2 namely Smt. Sunita the allegations are that her husband's elder brother and his sons have forcefully occupied the land of the informant on which a civil suit is going on between the parties. It has further been stated in the FIR that on 9-9-2017 at around 9.00 a.m. the accused persons namely Virendra, Manoj and Prakash Dev forcefully entered the house of the informant and started abusing her on which the informant protested and thereafter the accused beat her up with fists and kicked her. They pushed her on the ground and tore away her clothes till she was naked. When she screamed, her neighbour Khajani Devi came and protected her from the accused. In the mean time her brother Dharam Vir and his wife Brijesh Devi also came back from the field and covered the inforamant by putting clothes on her. The accused left the house of the informant threatning her and her family with dire consequences if they complained to the police. The allegations made in the First Information Report are serious in nature and make out a prima facie case.
The submissions made by the applicants' learned counsel call for adjudication on pure questions of fact which may be adequately adjudicated upon only by the trial court and while doing so even the submissions made on points of law can also be more appropriately gone into by the trial court in this case. This Court does not deem it proper, and therefore cannot be persuaded to have a pre-trial before the actual trial begins. A threadbare 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 trial. But it shall suffice to observe that the perusal of the F.I.R. and the material collected by the Investigating Officer on the basis of which the charge sheet has been submitted makes out a prima facie case against the accused at this stage and there appear to be sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. I do not find any justification to quash the charge sheet or the proceedings or the cognizance order against the applicants arising out of them 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 I do not see any abuse of the court's process either.
The application stands dismissed.
Order Date :- 30.5.2018 Naresh