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TMI Blog2018 (1) TMI 1094X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 2 registered at PS Connaught Place, New Delhi; FIR No. 148/2002 registered at PS Defence Colony, New Delhi, FIR No. 315/2005 registered at PS Naraina, New Delhi; and FIR No. 90/2002 registered at PS Connaught Place, New Delhi; the charge sheets filed in the said cases; the orders taking cognizance/ summoning passed by the Ld. ACMM, and every other proceeding undertaken in the said cases respectively, on the grounds that the FIRs do not disclose commission of any cognizable offence as the dispute between the parties is purely civil in nature. The petitioners are co-accused in the aforesaid cases, in respect whereof they have preferred these petitions. The particulars of each of these cases are tabulated hereinbelow. The names of the respective petitioners have been highlighted for facility, as appearing in the column of "Accused": S.No. FIR No./Date Police Station Accused (as per charge sheets) Under Sections (as per charge sheets) Petition No. 1. 90/2000 14.02.2000 Connaught Place Satya Pal Gupta Kaveen Gupta Vipul Gupta M/s Sunair Hotels Ltd. through its director Satya Pal Gupta 420/ 406/ 409/ 468/ 471/ 477A/ 120-B IPC Crl. M.C. No. 2369/2015 2. 99/2002 19.02.2 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 2002 including the petitioner Vipul Gupta, preferred quashing petitions before this Court being Crl. M.C. Nos. 2142/2007, 2229/2007 and 1988/2008. The petitioner S.P. Gupta withdrew the aforesaid petition being W.P. (Crl) 498/2005, and the Court vide order dated 04.03.2010 granted liberty to the petitioner to raise all issues before the learned Trial Court at the stage of consideration on charge, or at the appropriate stage. The relevant extracts of the order is reproduced below: " 3. Taking all these facts into consideration including the factum of pendency of the case for a period of more than five years and taking into consideration that ultimately it is for the trial Court to decide as to whether a charge is to be framed or not in the aforesaid case against the petitioner and to further decide whether the case should proceed or not in view of some of the objections raised on behalf of the petitioner about the propriety of issuance of summoning order etc., it would be appropriate to grant liberty to the petitioners to raise all the issues which have been raised in this petition before this Court at the appropriate stage/stage of framing of charge before the concerned Court." 6 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d simultaneously, a puzzling one. It is not easy to spend twelve years of time, "a yuga", in the nonclassical sense unless the personalities engaged in spending time have contrived intelligence to constantly play the "Snake and Ladder Game". Such kind of litigations clearly show that there are certain people who possess adamantine attitude to procrastinate the proceeding in a court of law on the base that each order is assailable and each step is challengeable before the superior courts. It is not to be understood that a litigant is not entitled in law to challenge the orders, but the legal process cannot be allowed to be abused. In the case at hand the process has definitely been abused." 10. In the aforesaid background, the petitioners have, once again, preferred the present petitions in this Court, praying for quashing of aforementioned FIRs. 11. The question which arises for consideration is, whether this Court should entertain the present petitions under Section 482 Cr.P.C. at this stage, in view of the fact that the earlier preferred petition under Section 482, i.e. W.P.(Crl.) No. 498/2005, and the other petitions mentioned in paragraph 5 above were withdrawn with liberty t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... merely took recourse thereto. Equally misplaced is the judgment of this Court in Rajinder Prasad v. Bashir [(2001) 8 SCC 522 : 2002 SCC (Cri) 28] . Although therein it was held that when an earlier revision application under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been dismissed, as not pressed, a second application under Section 482 thereof for grant of same relief should not have been entertained, this Court opined: (SCC p. 527, para 8) "8. We are of the opinion that no special circumstances were spelt out in the subsequent application for invoking the jurisdiction of the High Court under Section 482 of the Code and the impugned order is liable to be set aside on this ground alone." 30. It is, therefore, an authority for the proposition that the High Court is not completely denuded of its power to exercise inherent jurisdiction for the second time. 31. Furthermore, this Court therein also went into the merit of the matter. In this case, not only the merit of the matter had been gone into by the High Court as also by this Court, the questions raised in the petition had been referred to a larger Bench for obtaining an authoritative pronouncement. It is, therefore, too ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rt had jurisdiction to make the order dated April 7, 1970 quashing the proceeding against Respondents 1, 2 and 3 when on an earlier application made by the first respondent, the High Court had by its order dated December 12, 1968 refused to quash the proceeding. ...Section 561-A preserves the inherent power of the High Court to make such orders as it deems fit to prevent abuse of the process of the Court or to secure the ends of justice and the High Court must, therefore, exercise its inherent powers having regard to the situation prevailing at the particular point of time when its inherent jurisdiction is sought to be invoked. The High Court was in the circumstances entitled to entertain the subsequent application of Respondents 1 and 2 and consider whether on the facts and circumstances then obtaining the continuance of the proceeding against the respondents constituted an abuse of the process of the Court or its quashing was necessary to secure the ends of justice. The facts and circumstances obtaining at the time of the subsequent application of Respondents 1 and 2 were clearly different from what they were at the time of the earlier application of the first respondent because ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Neeta Bhalla I would enable the Petitioner to file another petition Section 482 CrPC. In Superintendent & Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, West Bengal v. Mohan Singh the Supreme Court explained the position in relation to the erstwhile Section 561 A of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 (which corresponds to Section 482 CrPC) as under: (SCC, pp 709-10) "Section 561A preserves the inherent power of the High Court to make such orders as it deems fit to prevent abuse of the process of the Court or to secure the ends of justice and the High Court mast therefore, exercise its inherent powers having regard to the situation prevailing at the particular point of time when its inherent jurisdiction is sought to be invoked. The High Court was in the circumstances entitled to entertain the subsequent application of respondent Nos. 1 and 2 and consider whether on the facts and circumstances then obtaining the continuance of the proceeding against the respondents constituted an abuse of the process of the Court or its quashing was necessary to secure the ends of justice. The facts and circumstances obtaining at the time of the subsequent application of respondent Nos. 1 and 2 were clearly diffe ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... CLB on 23.04.2012, and the further dismissal of the SLP is wholly inconsequential so far as the present cases are concerned. He has argued that these orders are in the nature of interlocutory orders, and do not return any finding of fact, much less a finding of fact which would bind the criminal Courts. Respondent VLS has tabulated the repeated endeavours made by the petitioners/ other co-accused to, inter alia, seek the quashing of the aforesaid FIRs, charge-sheets filed therein, and the summoning orders issued by the learned Magistrates. Other unsuccessful endeavours made by the petitioners and their co-accused in respect of the aforesaid FIRs qua the proceedings under Section 321 Cr.P.C. have also been tabulated. I may only take note of some of the other proceedings undertaken by the petitioners/ their co-accused in respect of the aforesaid FIRs, which form part of the said tabulation. 22. Crl.M.C. Nos. 352/2009 and 1021/2009 had been preferred by the other co-accused to assail the summoning order issued in respect of case FIR No.148/2002, which was dismissed on 02.07.2009 by M.C. Garg, J. Crl.M.C. No.2040/2010 was filed by some of the accused in respect of case FIR No.90/2000 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he charge has to be framed or not in the said cases against the petitioners/ accused, and to further decide whether the case should proceed or not in view of the objections raised by the accused/ petitioners. 27. Other quashing petitions preferred in respect of FIR No.90/2002 (Crl.M.C. No.911/2003), FIR No.148/2002 (Crl.M.C. No.1992/2006) and, FIR No. 315/2005 (W.P.(Crl.) No. 208/2006) were also similarly disposed of on 04.03.2010. 28. Pertinently, the petitioners have not even disclosed the further and other steps taken by them and their co-accused to assail the FIRs in question; the charge-sheet filed therein, and the summoning orders issued to the accused which are taken note of in paragraph 21 and 22 hereinabove. As noticed hereinabove, all the said proceedings were decided against the petitioners/ their co-accused. The petitioners should have, in all fairness, made a full and complete disclosure of the said proceedings as well, and their failure to do so, appears to be intentional and deliberate. 29. As noticed hereinabove, while dealing with Crl. Appeal Nos. 99/2016, 100/2016, 101/2016 and 102-04/2016 - wherein the issue of withdrawal from prosecution under Section 321 Cr. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to the minimum averment to be made mandatorily in a complaint for the offence under Section 138 read with Section 141 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. 35. Faced with the aforesaid limitation in relation to maintainability of the subsequent petition, the petitioners have submitted that the so-called further development, justifying the filing of the present petitions, is the dismissal of the appeal preferred by the VLS under Section 10F of the Companies Act by the High Court on 23.04.2012 against the order of the CLB, and the further dismissal of the Special Leave Petition by the Supreme Court on 21.01.2013. 36. The order dated 23.04.2012 passed in the Company Appeal (SB) No.16/2007 has been placed on record and perused by this Court. The said appeal had been preferred to assail the order passed by the CLB on 16.05.2007. By the order dated 16.05.2007, the CLB dismissed, firstly, the application filed by the Central Government seeking permission of the CLB under Section 235(b) of the Companies Act to investigate into the affairs of the Sunair, and secondly, the application preferred by VLS under Section 340 Cr.P.C. against the non-applicants. A perusal of the order dated 23.04.20 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ure the ends of justice. Ordinarily criminal proceedings instituted against an accused person must be tried under the provisions of the Code, and the High Court would be reluctant to interfere with the said proceedings at an interlocutory stage. However, there are some categories of cases where the inherent jurisdiction can and should be exercised for quashing the proceedings. Where it may be possible for the High Court to take the view that the institution or continuance of criminal proceedings against an accused person may amount to the abuse of the process of the Court or that the quashing of the impugned proceedings would secure the ends of justice. But at the same time merely because the nature of the dispute is primarily of a civil nature, the criminal prosecution cannot be quashed because in cases of forgery and fraud there is always some element of civil nature or in a case where the accused alleges that the transaction between the parties are of a civil nature and the criminal court cannot proceed with the complaint because the factum of document being forged was pending in the Civil Court. It is to be seen if a matter, which is essentially of a civil nature, has been give ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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