Civil Dispute Given Colour Of Criminal Offence: Supreme Court Says Criminal Proceedings Should Not Become Weapons Of Harassment

Dispute of a civil nature has been given colour of criminal offence, the Supreme Court observed in a judgment delivered last month while it quashed criminal proceedings initiated against a property purchaser.

The bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari observed that while considering a petition seeking quashing of criminal proceedings, the High Court should examine whether a complaint discloses criminal offence or not depends on the nature of the allegation and whether the essential ingredients of a criminal offence are present or not.

 Section 482 is designed to achieve the purpose of ensuring that criminal proceedings are not permitted to generate into weapons of harassment, the court reiterated.

In this case, an FIR was lodged against the power of attorney of the complainant and the purchaser of the property. Examining the FIR, the court observed that the criminal proceedings are being taken recourse to as a weapon of harassment against the purchaser. "The FIR does not disclose any offence so far as the Appellant is concerned. There is no whisper of how and in what manner, this Appellant is involved in any criminal offence and the charge sheet, the relevant part whereof has been extracted above, is absolutely vague", the court observed.

The court further observed that the charge sheet is totally vague. While allowing the appeal and, the bench observed thus:

There can be no doubt that jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. should be used sparingly for the purpose of preventing abuse of the process of any court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice. Whether a complaint discloses criminal offence or not depends on the nature of the allegation and whether the essential ingredients of a criminal offence are present or not has to be judged by the High Court. There can be no doubt that a complaint disclosing civil transactions may also have 18 a criminal texture. The High Court has, however, to see whether the dispute of a civil nature has been given colour of criminal offence. In such a situation, the High Court should not hesitate to quash the criminal proceedings as held by this Court in Paramjeet Batra (supra) extracted above. 34. The given set of facts may make out a civil wrong as also a criminal offence. Only because a civil remedy is available may not be a ground to quash criminal proceedings. But as observed above, in this case, no criminal offence has been made out in the FIR read with the Charge-Sheet so far as this Appellant is concerned. The other accused Rajan Kumar has died.

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