S.195 CrPC | No FIR Can Be Registered For Forgery/ Conspiracy Committed Before Court On The Basis Of Private Complaint: Chhattisgarh HC

The Chhattisgarh High Court recently held that in terms of Section 195 CrPC, no FIR can be registered for forging of documents or conspiracy committed before the Court, on the basis of a private complaint.

Quashing one such FIR, Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas noted,

"It certainly falls within ambit of Section 195 (ii) of Cr.P.C. which provides that no Court shall take cognizance of any offence described in Section 463, or punishable under section 471, section 475 or section 476, of the said Code, when such offence is alleged to have been committed in respect of a document produced or given in evidence in a proceeding in any Court."

Background

The petition was filed under Section 482 CrPC for quashing the FIR against the petitioner for an offense punishable under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. In the petitioner's case, FIR was registered based on a written report alleging that the petitioner in a revenue case for mutation of land filed before Tahsildar had submitted fabricated false documents of Panchayat proceeding. By doing so, he got his name mutated in the revenue records of the ancestral property.

Advocate Somnath Verma, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, submitted that if any fraud is played in court proceeding then as per Section 195 of the CrPC, no Court can take cognizance of any criminal conspiracy committed before it, except on the complaint in writing of the public servant concerned or of some other public servant to whom he is administratively subordinate. Therefore, the present FIR on the basis of the complaint made by the private respondent is not tenable.

Findings of the Court

The Court perused the FIR and the contents of the complaint to note that the provisions of Sections 195 & 340 of the Cr.P.C. will be attracted, and it is perjury that amounts to forgery. It referred to Narendra Kumar Shrivastava v. the State of Bihar, wherein it has been clearly held that a prosecution under this Section can be initiated only by the sanction of the Court under whose proceedings an offence referred to in Section 195(1)(b) has allegedly been committed.

It also relied on decisions of the Supreme Court where it held that the purpose and object of the Legislature in creating the bar against cognizance of private complaints in regard to the offences mentioned in Section 195(1) (b) & (c) is both to save the accused person from vexatious or baseless prosecutions inspired by feelings of vindictiveness on the part of the private complainants to harass their opponents and also to avoid confusion which is likely to arise on account of conflicts between findings of the courts in which forged documents are produced or false evidence is led and the conclusions of the criminal courts dealing with the private complaint. The Court observed,

"It is for this reason as suggested earlier, that the Legislature has entrusted the court, whose proceedings had been the target of the offence of perjury to consider the expediency in the larger public interest, of a criminal trial of the guilty party."

On perusing the FIR contents, it noted that it is clearly established that documents were produced in the revenue court proceeding; therefore, the same definitely falls within the ambit of forged documents, based on which certain beneficial orders have been passed in favor of the petitioner.

Therefore, it noted that it is crystal clear that the registration of FIR against the petitioner on the basis of complaints made by the respondents and other complainants is not tenable.

Case Title: Nand Kumar Verma v. State of Chhattisgarh & Anr.

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Chh) 13

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