Gross Abuse Of Court's Process: Kerala High Court Dismisses Two Petitions With Exemplary Cost

The Kerala High Court recently dismissed two petitions and imposed exemplary costs of Rs.25,000/- each to be paid to the Kerala High Court Bar Association for gross abuse of the court's process. 

Justice Amit Rawal observed that the sole purpose of both petitioners was to stall the criminal proceedings pending in lower courts and therefore opened that they deserve to be dismissed with exemplary costs. 

Both the cases are gross abuse of the process of the court and deserve to be dismissed with exemplary costs.

Both the petitions arose from an accident alleged to have occurred on 27th April 2017. A case was registered on the basis of this accident, and an investigation was conducted. One of the petitioners filed a petition seeking to expedite further investigation in the case and to quash the police report. 

Referring to the Supreme Court decisions in SB Thambe v. HY Dage and Ors. and Sakiri Vasu v. State of UP, the Court observed that the law with regard to the entertainment of writ petitions under Article 226 is no longer res integra. If a person is aggrieved of a lack of proper investigation, the remedy would not lie under Article 226, but under Section 156(3) of CrPC.

Meanwhile, an Original Petition was filed to stay the further proceeding of the MACT till the petition has been disposed of.

Regarding this, the Court opined that the sole attempt of both the petitioners was to stall both the criminal proceedings as well as the proceeding pending in the MACT case, and the petitioners have other alternatives and in no way can interdict the criminal and MACT proceedings.

Petitioners are at liberty to lead evidence in support of the defence statement under Section 313 of Cr.P.C and also cross-examine the prosecution witnesses with regard to the contents of the report filed by the police to belie the case but cannot in the manner and mode as has been sought in the writ petition and O.P to interdict the criminal as well as MACT proceedings.

Calling both the cases a gross abuse of the process of the Court, Justice Rawal dismissed both the cases with exemplary costs to be paid to the Kerala High Court Bar Association. 

Case Title: Sanalkumar v. City Police Commissioner, Kollam and others and,  Sumith v. Shareef S and others.

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Ker) 360

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