Inconvenience Of Accused No Grounds To Transfer Case: P&H HC Dismisses Plea Of 77-Yr Old To Transfer Cruelty FIR, Exempts Personal Appearance

Observing that inconvenience caused only to the accused cannot be the ground for transfer of FIR, the Punjab & Haryana High Court dismissed the plea of a 77-year-old woman filed for transfer of cruelty FIR filed against her by daughter-in-law.

The Court rejected the contention that the FIR should be transferred because the woman is at old age and there is no man to accompany her from her hometown Amritsar to Haryana's Karnal. 

Justice Sumeet Goel said, "It is not the parameter of inconvenience of the petitioner- accused alone that has to be considered; rather convenience must be adjudged on the touchstone of relative convenience and difficulties of all parties concerned in the process i.e. the accused, victim/complainant, witnesses and State (prosecution). In other words; the concept of convenience herein entails familial triangulation of comparative convenience of accused, victim/complainant and the Society at large (represented by State/prosecuting agency)."

The Court added that the comparative inconvenience and "hardships likely to be caused to all concerned" is a factor that should be borne in mind while considering a plea for transfer of the FIR.

These observations were made while hearing the plea of a 77 years old woman (mother-in-law of complainant), to transfer cruelty FIR lodged in Karnal which is the parental house of her daughter-in-law to Amritsar. The FIR was lodged under Sections 323, 406, 420, 498-A, 506 and 354 of the IPC in 2021. It was alleged that the woman was harassed and beaten by her in-laws.

Counsel for the petitioner argued that the marriage of the son of the petitioner and complainant was solemnized in 2006 and they went to England in 2010 and resided there till 2016. However, whenever they were in India, they used to live in Amritsar. Thus, no cause of action arose at Karnal.

After hearing the submissions, the Court said that it could not be said at this stage that the Karnal Police did not have the requisite jurisdiction to register the FIR or to investigate the same. Accordingly, the plea raised by the petitioner deserves to be rejected on this ground.

It further rejected the contention that the petitioner would suffer general inconvenience on account of her being aged 77 years, and no adult male member being available in her family to accompany her from Amritsar to Karnal to attend each and every date of the hearing.

"The huge distance of about 350 kilometres from Amritsar to Karnal, cannot be considered to be a ground, by itself, to transfer the FIR in question from Karnal (Haryana) to Amritsar (Punjab)," the Court said.

Justice Goel opined that "manageable and real time solutions can be undertaken to mitigate this seeming difficulty/inconvenience being faced by the petitioner-accused by granting personal presence exemption to her keeping in view her age and the distance between Karnal (Haryana) to Amritsar (Punjab)."

However, the judge imposed certain conditions including that the petitioner will be represented by a counsel and she will not stall the proceedings of the trial Court.

In the light of the above, the plea was dismissed.

Title: XXX v. XXX

Mr. Veneet Sharma, Advocate for the petitioner. Ms. Priyanka Sadar, AAG Haryana.

Mr. Adhiraj Singh, AAG Punjab.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (PH) 296