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Judgment
This intra court appeal arises out of the order dated 01.12.2021 passed by learned Single Judge in WP(C) 2466/2021, by virtue of which the writ petition filed by the appellants, for quashing the chargesheet arising out of FIR No. 18/2018 has been dismissed.
It is stated that the Learned Single Judge has passed the order impugned against the law and has not considered the case of the appellants in its right perspective by ignoring the order dated 06.08.2018 issued by Superintendent of Police Kupwara.
We have heard Mr. Thakur Learned counsel appearing for the appellants at length and he has reiterated the grounds urged in the memo of appeal and vehemently argued that even the learned trial court is not proceeding with the matter. The contention of Mr. Thakur is that the appellants have been falsely implicated in the challan that is substantiated by the order dated 06.08.2018 issued by Superintendent of Police Kupwara.
We have also scanned the record minutely.
Brief facts necessary for the disposal of the appeal are that on 27.04.2018 FIR bearing No. 17/2018 for commission of offences under sections 147,341,148,354,323 RPC was registered against the accused at the instance of appellant No.1 and thereafter the counter FIR bearing No. 18/2018 for commission of offences under sections 147,354,323,325 RPC was registered against the appellants. It is further stated that the challans in both these FIRs have been filed by the Investigating Officer.
The appellants filed the writ petition primarily for quashing the challan by placing reliance only upon the order/communication dated 06.08.2018 issued by Superintendent of Police Kupwara, where in certain observations with regard to the investigation conducted by the Investigating Officer in both the above mentioned FIRs have been made by the S.P Kupwara and by virtue of this order Dy.S.P, PC Kupwara was directed to take up the investigations in both these FIRs and it was also observed that the departmental proceedings shall be initiated against the said Investigating Officer. The perusal of order dated 06.08.2018 issued by Superintendent of Police Kupwara, reveals that many observations have been made with regard to the conduct of Investigating Officer during investigation of FIR No.17/2018 and only two observations have been made with regard to his conduct during investigation in FIR No. 18/2018, wherein the appellants figure as an accused. It was because of the conduct of the investigating Officer that S.P Kupwara transferred investigation to Dy.S.P PC Kupwara.
The appellants have not been able to demonstrate before this court that no offence is made out against the appellants from the mere perusal of the charge sheet and rather their contention is that the investigation was not conducted in a fair and impartial manner and strangely enough, the appellants have not sought any relief with regard to the investigation in FIR No. 17/2018 in which the appellant No. 1 is complainant, where in number of shortcomings were pointed out by the S.P. Kupwara. The contention that the appellants have been falsely implicated cannot be considered in writ petition, the same being disputed question of facts and matter of trial particularly when there are allegations and counter allegations against each other by both the parties.
It would be profitable to take note judgment of Apex court in Priti Saraf & Anr Vs State of NCT of Delhi reported in 2021 SCC On Line SC 206, wherein the Apex Court has observed as under:
In the instant case, the complaint/FIR/charge-sheet as noticed above, does, however, lend credence to the questions posed. It is settled that one is not supposed to dilate on this score, or intend to present that the allegations in the complaint will have to be accepted on the face of it and the truth or falsity of which would not be gone into by the Court at this stage, as noticed above, whether the allegations in the complaint were true is to be decided on the basis of the evidence led at the stage of trial and the observations on this score in the case of Nagpur Steel & Alloys Pvt. Ltd. v. P. Radhakrishna ought to be noticed. In para 3, this Court observed:—
“3. We have perused the complaint carefully. In our opinion it cannot be said that the complaint did not disclose the commission of an offence. Merely because the offence was committed during the course of a commercial transaction, would not be sufficient to hold that the complaint did not warrant a trial. Whether or not the allegations in the complaint were true was to be decided on the basis of evidence to be led at the trial in the complaint case. It certainly was not a case in which the criminal trial should have been cut short. The quashing of the complaint has resulted in grave miscarriage of justice. We, therefore, without expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, allow this appeal and set aside the impugned order of the High Court and restore the complaint. The learned trial Magistrate shall proceed with the complaint and dispose of it in accordance with law expeditiously.”
Be it noted that in the matter of exercise of inherent power by the High Court, the only requirement is to see whether continuance of the proceedings would be a total abuse of the process of the Court. The Criminal Procedure Code contains a detailed procedure for investigation, framing of charge and trial, and in the event when the High Court is desirous of putting a halt to the known procedure of law, it must use proper circumspection with great care and caution to interfere in the complaint/FIR/charge-sheet in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction.
The learned Single Judge in the order impugned has observed that the matter is yet to be examined for the purpose of framing of charge and further trial court has been directed to expedite the proceedings, so we do not find any reason to interfere with the well-reasoned order of the Learned Single Judge.
In view of what has been discussed above, there is no merit in the appeal and as such the same is dismissed.