AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
Shiva Kirti Singh, J.—Heard learned Counsel for the petitioners, learned Counsel for the State and learned Counsel for the Opposite Party No. 2.
On behalf of all the eight petitioners a prayer has been made for quashing the order of cognizance dated 4-9-96 and also the consequential proceeding arising out of Complaint case No. 204 of 1996 which was at the relevant time pending before learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Madhubani.
Prima facie the order of cognizance, whereby learned Magistrate has taken cognizance on the basis of statement of the complainant on Solemn Affirmation and also statement of two witnesses for offences under Sections 147, 452, 323, 380, 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, does not suffer from any illegality. However, learned Counsel for the petitioners has submitted that the entire prosecution is a malicious prosecution because father of the complainant Jeebach Paswan lost in a proceeding u/s 145 of Code of Criminal Procedure in respect of a total area of 12 Kathas of land and soon after losing in the revision case before this Court on 20-3-1996 this complaint case was lodged through daughter of Jeebach Paswan on 17-4-1996 leveling general and omnibus allegations that the accused persons had forcibly cut several trees from the orchard of her father and had committed assault. It was further highlighted that besides lodging this complaint case without disclosing the identity of the land over which trees were allegedly cut, a Civil Suit bearing Title Suit No. 29/96 had also been instituted by Ram Sakal Paswan son of said Jeebach Paswan who had died in the meantime. That Title Suit is said to be pending in the court of Munsif- II, Madhubani. It was highlighted that the daughter who has lodged the present case is not a party to any of the cases or proceedings relating to the land of Jeebach Paswan and the present case is only to harass the petitioners when in fact parties are engaged in serious civil dispute in respect of 12 Kathas of land except the homestead land of about one Katha belonging to Jeebach Paswan.
Learned Counsel for the petitioners has placed reliance upon a judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Bhajanlal reported in AIR 1992 SC 605 in which the 7th category indicates that criminal prosecution may be quashed where the prosecution is shown to be malafide.
On the other hand learned Counsel for the O. P. No. 2 submits that no doubt parties are having land dispute from before and Civil Suit is also pending but only for not giving the details of the land over which the trees were cut, it cannot be said that the prosecution is malafide.
On considering the arguments of both the parties, it is noticed that not only the complaint petition is silent as to the details of the land over which the trees were allegedly cut but no reply has been given by the complainant to the allegations made in this application that the complainant is trying to pressurize the petitioners to give up their claim over those very lands which were subject matter of proceeding u/s 145 of Code of Criminal Procedure and that description of the land has been purposely withheld because the complainant''s father has no other land except a claim over those under dispute and a homestead land of one Katha.
In view of aforesaid facts and circumstances and justice to allow the criminal prosecution to continue when the allegations relate mainly to cutting of trees from undisclosed land. Hence, the prayer made in this application is allowed and the criminal proceeding relating to Complaint case No. 204/1996 pending before Chief Judicial Magistrate, Madhubani is quashed.