Arif and Anr. v. the State and Anr.
Case brief
What is this about?
High Court of Karnataka; criminal quashing petitions styled 'short P.I.L.s' by accused persons; IPC provisions invoked (section numbers illegible); first information by respondent No. 3 alleging unlawful assembly, loudspeaker proclamation that respondent No. 3 was to be done to death, and instigation of the general public; trial court (Principal Civil Judge, Chincholi) rejected IO's report and directed case registration; plea of absence from scene of occurrence (driver; Assistant Executive Engineer in Bengaluru) rejected; no merits found; criminal petition disposed of. CAUTION: source text corrupted (glyph substitution) - party names, coram, dates, case/Crime/FIR numbers and IPC sections unrecoverable; confirm from original before citing.
What did the court decide?
The criminal proceedings could not be quashed by presuming the absence of the accused from the scene of occurrence, where serious allegations are made against the accused in general and the petitioners in particular of having committed a cognizable offence.