High Court Has 'Inherent Power' To Allow Compromise For Non-Compoundable Offences For Disputes Private In Nature: Andhra Pradesh HC

The offence alleged was under Section 304B of Indian Penal Code that deals with Dowry Death. The applications were filed requesting the Court to permit the defacto complainant to compound the offences and record the compromise.

It was seen from the terms of compromise recorded in the joint memorandum that at the advice of the elders and well-wishers of the petitioner, both sides had settled the matter amicably. This was done in view of leading peaceful life of both the parties separately and keeping in mind the social status and in view of their future, they intended to compromise with each other and the defacto complainant was inclined to withdraw the police report.

The counsel for petitioner relied on the observations of Apex Court decision in Gian Singh v. State of Punjab & Anr. (2012) in which settlement of disputes in non-compoundable offences under Section 320 of CrPC was under consideration:

Heinous and serious offences of mental depravity or offences like murder, rape, dacoity, etc. cannot be fittingly quashed even though the victim or victim's family and the offender have settled the dispute… But the criminal cases having overwhelmingly and pre-dominatingly civil flavour stand on different footing for the purposes of quashing, particularly the offences arising from commercial, financial, mercantile, civil, partnership or such like transactions or the offences arising out of matrimony relating to dowry, etc. or the family disputes where the wrong is basically private or personal in nature and the parties have resolved their entire dispute. In this category of cases, High Court may quash criminal proceedings if in its view, because of the compromise between the offender and victim, the possibility of conviction is remote and bleak and continuation of criminal case would put accused to great oppression and prejudice and extreme injustice would be caused to him by not quashing the criminal case despite full and complete settlement and compromise with the victim.

With regard to the inherent power of the High Court under Section 482 CrPC in relation to non-compoundable offences, and joint memo filed, the Court allowed the compromise executed by the parties out of their free will. The criminal petition was allowed and the criminal proceedings against petitioner were quashed.

Case Title: CHEPALA APPALA RAJU Versus THE STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

Coram: Justice D. Ramesh

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (AP) 37

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