'Liberty Is So Precious; But We Must Give A Sense Of Responsibility To High Courts' : SC On 'Routine' Stay Orders Under Section 482 CrPC
The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern regarding the rising trend among High Courts across the country to routinely grant interim relief by way of a stay on any coercive action pending a writ petition or a plea under section 482, CrPC for quashing of criminal proceedings.The bench of Justices D. Y. Chandrachud, M. R. Shah and Sanjiv Khanna was considering an SLP arising out of...
The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern regarding the rising trend among High Courts across the country to routinely grant interim relief by way of a stay on any coercive action pending a writ petition or a plea under section 482, CrPC for quashing of criminal proceedings.
Mr Shyam Divan, Senior Counsel had submitted that the above orders required the respondents to attend the Police Station on 17 October 2019, 19 October 2019 and 22 October 2019 and to cooperate in the investigation. He had urged that on 17 December 2019, the investigating officer in the EOW addressed communications to the Sessions Court stating that the accused were not cooperating in the investigation. Moreover, it was submitted that the protection which was granted by the Sessions Court was extended from time to time and nearly a year thereafter, a writ petition was moved before the Bombay High Court in which a blanket order has been passed on 28 September 2020. It was submitted that since the respondents were protected by an interim stay of arrest by the Sessions Court, there was no occasion to seek a blanket direction of the High Court restraining the investigating officer from taking coercive measures and such an application is an abuse of the process. It had been urged that the High Court passed an order directing that no coercive measures would be adopted without any reasons being indicated.
Another bench headed by Justice Chandrachud had in November last year agreed to examine the issue whether a High Court, while considering a petition to quash FIR, pass an order protecting the accused from arrest until the submission of the charge sheet under Section 173(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.