Allowed

Ram Pal Kushwaha v. State of U.P. and Another

Allahabad HC2 Sept 2021A482/4284/2021

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

The court quashed criminal proceedings under Ss. 323, 504, 506, 354, 354B IPC upon successful compromise between applicant and victim. Citing Narinder Singh and others, the court adopted a pragmatic approach given witness hostility risks and backlog, allowing the application despite noting no conclusory finding on falsity of allegations was made.

What did the court decide?

All proceedings in Complaint Case No. 1397 of 2019, including the summoning order dated 08.01.2020, were quashed.

Ram Pal Kushwaha Vs State of U.P. and Another — Civil Procedure and Limitation | Allahabad HC (2021)

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Court No. - 85

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Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 4284 of 2021

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Applicant :- Ram Pal Kushwaha Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Applicant :- Devesh Kumar Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.,Sunil Kumar Singh

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Hon'ble Gautam Chowdhary,J.

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Heard learned counsel for the applicants and learned A.G.A. for the State.

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The present 482 Cr.P.C. application has been filed praying for quashing of summoning order dated 08.01.2020 as well as the entire proceedings of Complaint Case No. 1397 of 2019 (Smt. Murti Vs. Ram Pal Kushwaha), under Sections- 323, 504, 506, 354, 354B I.P.C., Police Station- Barua Sagar, District- Jhansi, pending in the court of Judicial Magistrate-I, Jhansi.

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Learned counsel for the applicants submits that an FIR had come to be lodged by the opposite party no. 2 owing to some misunderstanding and misgivings between the parties. With passage of time they have been able to resolve their differences and have settled their dispute amicably in writing, which has also been verified by the learned court below on 23.02.2021 . They realise that there was no criminal intent on part of the applicants and that no criminal offence has been committed by the applicants.

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Learned counsel appearing for the opposite party no.2 does not dispute the correctness of the submission made by learned counsel for the applicants or the correctness of the documents relied upon by him. In fact, an affidavit filed today discloses that the compromise has been entered into between the parties. He submits that opposite party no. 2 has no objection, if the proceedings in the aforesaid case are quashed.

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Paragraph no.7 of the said affidavit read as under:

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"That deponent namely Smt. Murti is complainant of the present case and she is also the sole victim. She specifically states that she had entered into a law full compromise with applicant and now she does not want to prosecute the applicant any further. She had no grievances against the applicant and she has no objection if this Hon'ble Court pleases to quash the summoning order of the present case/ proceeding of the present case on the basis of compromise."

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Learned counsel for the applicants in support of his contention

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has placed reliance on the judgments of Apex Court in the case of Narinder Singh vs. State of Punjab reported in (2014) 6 SCC 466 , Yogendra Yadav vs. State of Jharkhand reported in (2014) 9 SCC 653 and Parbatbhai Aahir Vs. State of Gujarat reported in (2017) 9 SCC 641 and has submitted that the applicants and opposite party no.2 have settled their differences through compromise and as such opposite party no.2 does not wish to press the aforesaid case against the applicants. Opposite party no.2 is ready to withdraw the prosecution of the applicants and in view of the compromise, no fruitful purpose would be served if the prosecution is allowed to go on.

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From perusal of the record, it is apparent that parties have entered into compromise and appear to have settled their real disputes amicably. Thus, it further appears that the opposite party no. 2, who would be the key prosecution witness, if the trial were to proceed, has declared his unequivocal intent to turn hostile at the trial. In such circumstances, it is apparent that merits and truth apart, the proceedings in trial, if allowed to continue, may largely be a waste of precious time by the learned court below.

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The court cannot remain oblivious to the hard reality that the facts of the present case and other similar cases present where, though allegations made in the FIR do contain ingredients of an offence. However, in view such settlement having been reached, the chances of conviction are not only bleak but if such trials are allowed to continue along with all other trials that lie piled up in practically all criminal courts in the state, the continuance of trials in cases such as the instant case may only work to the huge disadvantage of other cases where litigants are crying for justice.

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In normal circumstances, the court would be loathe to accept some of such compromise arrangements. Sadly, even that course does not commend itself to the court in view of the high pendency of criminal cases and the high propensity to lie and state falsehood that appears to be otherwise rampant in the society - where desire to take revenge appears to sometime over shadow the pure pursuit of justice; where winning a legal battle matters more than doing the right thing; where teaching a lesson to ones adversary often appears to be the only purpose of instituting a criminal proceeding.

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Thus, looking at the prevalent tendencies in the society, a more pragmatic, and less technical approach commends to the court - to let some criminal prosecutions such as the present case be dropped, for the sake of more effective, efficient and proper trial in other cases where the litigants appear to be serious about

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their rights and more consistent in their approach.

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Considering the facts and circumstances of the case and the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the parties regarding the compromise entered into between the parties and taking all these factors into consideration cumulatively, the compromise between parties be accepted and further taking into account the legal position as laid down by the Apex Court in the case of Narinder Singh vs. State of Punjab (supra), Yogendra Yadav vs. State of Jharkhand (supra ) and Parbatbhai Aahir Vs. State of Gujarat (supra) the entire proceedings of the aforesaid case is hereby quashed.

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In such circumstances, though no useful purpose would be served in allowing the prosecution to continue any further, however, no firm conclusion may be reached, at this stage, as to complete falsity of the allegations made against the applicant. The present 482 Cr.P.C. application thus stands allowed .

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Order Date :- 2.9.2021 shiv

Ram Pal Kushwaha v. State of U.P. and Another

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Ram Pal Kushwaha v. State of U.P. and Another

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