Courts can quash proceedings aimed at causing harm: HC

Tribune News Service

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, April 13

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that criminal proceeding found to have been initiated with mala fide intent, malice for wreaking vengeance or to cause harm could be quashed.

Proceedings could also be quashed where the allegations were absurd and inherently improbable.

The assertion came as Justice Sant Parkash quashed an FIR registered against a Forest Department employee on the ground that he continued to mark his attendance through biometric mode even after his service benefits were withdrawn.

The Bench ruled the FIR was nothing but a counter-blast to the litigation initiated by the petitioner against the department for not regularising his services.

Justice Sant Parkash added that it was the court’s duty to ensure that effort to settle civil disputes and claims, not involving criminal offence, by applying pressure through criminal prosecution should be deprecated and discouraged.

Justice Sant Parkash was hearing a petition filed by the employee against the State of Haryana and other respondents for quashing an FIR registered on November 20, 2019, for cheating, criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and another offence under Sections 120-B, 174, 406, 420 of the IPC at Karnal Civil Lines police station.

The State’s stand in the matter was that the petitioner kept on marking his attendance though his services were not regularised intentionally to extort money from the department on the pretext of performing his duties.

Appearing before the Bench, the State counsel submitted the court should restrain itself from throttling legitimate prosecutions at the threshold and the law should be allowed to take its course. All that a court was required to see was whether prima facie an offence was made out.

After hearing rival contentions, Justice Sant Parkas asserted it could safely be held in the facts and circumstances of the case that the present FIR was nothing but a counter-blast to the litigation initiated by the petitioner against the department for not regularising his services.

Justice Sant Parkash added that a delay of three years in the FIR registration was not explained by the prosecution. Besides, the allegations levelled in the FIR or the complaint, even if taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, did not prima facie constitute an offence or made out a case against the petitioner.

“The allegations contained in the FIR are purely contractual disputes of civil nature. But the department has given a criminal colour to it and breach of contract does not come within the purview of cheating as defined in the IPC. There are no allegations in the complaint about the petitioner having fraudulent or dishonest intentions at the time of seeking regularisation of his services,” Justice Sant Parkas added.

The Case

The judgement came as Justice Sant Parkash quashed an FIR against a Forest Department employee on the ground that he continued to mark his attendance through biometric mode even after his service benefits were withdrawn.

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