Section 482 CrPC - Complaint Deserves To Be Quashed If If No Offence Is Made Out By A Careful Reading Of It : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court reiterated that a criminal complaint has to be quashed if if no offence is made out by a careful reading of the complaint.

When the complaint itself disclosed nothing more than a commercial relationship which broke, it is not possible to enlarge the scope of his complaint by merely adding the language used in the text of the Indian Penal Code, the bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and V. Ramasubramanian observed.

In this case, the complainant filed a private complaint under Section 200 Cr.P.C, which was referred by the Court under Section 156(3) CrPC to the police which registered FIR under Sections 406, 420, 408, 460, 471, 384, 311, 193, 196 read with Section 120­B IPC. The accused approached the High Court for quashing FIR by filing a petition under Section 482 CrPC which was dismissed.

Before the Apex Court bench, it was contended (i) that the complaint filed does not disclose the commission of any offence; (ii) that the complaint was only a counter blast to the civil suit filed by appellant No.1 and a criminal complaint lodged by the appellants against respondent No.2; (iii) that the High Court overlooked the pendency of an application for bringing on record the charge­sheet and for the inclusion of a prayer for quashing of the charge­sheet.

Perusing the complaint, the bench observed:

"A careful reading of the complaint, the gist of which we have extracted above would show that none of the ingredients of any of the offences complained against the appellants are made out. Even if all the averments contained in the complaint are taken to be true, they do not make out any of the offences alleged against the appellants. Therefore, we do not know how an FIR was registered and a charge­sheet was also filed."

The court added that when the complaint itself disclosed nothing more than a commercial relationship which broke, it is not possible to enlarge the scope of his complaint by merely adding the language used in the text of the Indian Penal Code.

"The High Court was clearly in error in overlooking the application for bringing on record the subsequent development of the filing of the charge­sheet and the prayer for inclusion of the relief of quashing of the charge­sheet in the original petition.. It is too late in the day to seek support from any precedents, for the proposition that if no offence is made out by a careful reading of the complaint, the complaint deserves to be quashed.", the bench observed while allowing the appeal.

Case details

Wyeth Limited vs State of Bihar | 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 721 | CrA 1224 OF 2022 | 11 August 2022 | Justices Indira Banerjee and V. Ramasubramanian

Headnotes

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 ; Section 482 - If no offence is made out by a careful reading of the complaint, the complaint deserves to be quashed - When the complaint itself disclosed nothing more than a commercial relationship which broke, it is not possible to enlarge the scope of his complaint by merely adding the language used in the text of the Indian Penal Code. (Para 15-18)

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