CHANCHALPATI DAS v. THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL & ORS.

ABCDEFGH656SUPREME COURT REPORTS[2023] 6 S.C.R.Allowing the appeals, the CourtHELD:

It is again pertinent to note that, even as per thecase of the complainant, the alleged incident of bus theft had takenplace in the year 2001, and it was only in 2009 that the substantialcomplaint was made in the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate. Itis just not believable that the concerned Police Station, Kolkatawould not have taken any action on the report made in 2002 onbehalf of the powerful body like the religious/spiritual Society in Kolkata, or on the letter dated 30.09.2006 written by the BranchManager of the Society, Kolkata. The respondent no. 2-complainant also did not take any concrete action for getting thesaid complaint registered with regard to the alleged theft of busfor a long period of eight years, till the complaint in the Courtwas filed in the year 2009. In the opinion of the Court such aninordinate delay of eight years in filing the complaint in the courtitself would be a sufficient ground to quash the proceedings. Ifthe luxury bus owned by the religious society, Kolkata Branch in1998 was so precious to them, they would not have sat silent forsuch a long time of eight years. In opinion of this Court, thecriminal machinery set into motion by filing the complaint for thealleged incident which had taken place eight years ago, that actitself was nothing but a sheer misuse and abuse of the process ofthe court. [Para 11][663-D-G]

That apart, from the bare perusal of the complaint filedbefore the Court, on the basis of which the FIR was registered atthe Police Station on 20th February, 2009, it is discernible thatexcept bald allegations made in the complaint with regard to thetheft of bus in question there was no material or documentproduced by the complainant to substantiate the allegationsagainst the appellants. Even after the investigation of the saidcomplaint, there was no evidence collected by the investigatingofficer to prima facie satisfy the ingredients constituting thealleged offences under Sections 468, 471, 406 and 120B of IPC.Even if the allegations made in the complaint as well as in the Chargesheet are taken at their face value none of the ingredientsconstituting the alleged offences are culled out. The SeniorCounsel for the appellants had strenuously urged relying uponthe documents pertaining to the transfer of ownership and ABCDEFGH657registration of the said bus, that the said documents were executedby the then authorized persons of the religious society in Kolkata, in opinion of this Court, the said documents could not beconsidered in these proceedings, the same being not the part ofthe charge-sheet papers. In any case, there is nothing to suggestfrom the other documents on record of the instant appeals thatthe investigating officer had even bothered to collect any cogentor substantive evidence against the appellants to prosecute themfor the alleged offences. There was no expert opinion obtainedor scientific evidence collected on the documents allegedly forgedto show as to by whom, when and how the theft of vehicle andforgery of documents were committed. Under the circumstances, allowing such prosecution to continue would not only be an emptyformality but would be gross wastage of court’s precious time.[Para 12][663-G-H; 664-A-E]

In the light of afore-stated legal position, if the facts ofthe case are appreciated, there remains no shadow of doubt thatthe complaint filed by the respondent-complainant after aninordinate unexplained delay of eight years was nothing but sheermisuse and abuse of the process of law to settle the personalscores with the appellants, and that continuation of such maliciousprosecution would also be further abuse and misuse of processof law, more particularly when neither the allegations made inthe complaint nor in the chargesheet, disclose any prima faciecase against the appellants. The allegations made against theappellants are so absurd and improbable that no prudent personcan ever reach to a conclusion that there is a sufficient groundfor proceeding against the appellants-accused. [Para 17][666-F-G]

In view of this judgment, the other set of petitions filedagainst the order of the High Court wherein the High Courtdirected Judicial Magistrate to fix charge and conclude trial takingrecourse to s.309 Cr.P.C. do not survive and stand disposed ofaccordingly. [Paras 1 and 2][668-D]Dalip Singh vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others(2010) 2 SCC 114 : [2009] 16 SCR 111; Subrata RoySahara vs. Union of India and Others (2014) 8 SCC470 : [2014] 12 SCR 573 – relied on.CHANCHALPATI DAS v. THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL &ANR. ABCDEFGH658SUPREME COURT REPORTS[2023] 6 S.C.R.Central Bureau of Investigation Vs. Maninder Singh(2016) 1 SCC 389 : [2015] 10 SCR 277; State of Gujarat Vs. Gajanand M. Dalwadi (Dead) by LRS.(2008) 1 SCC 716 : [2007] 13 SCR 913; Jasbir Singhvs. Tara Singh and Ors. (2016) 16 SCC 441 : [2015]10 SCR 61; Jagdish Ram Vs. State of Rajasthan & Anr. (2004) 4 SCC 432 : [2004] 2 SCR 846; Kaptan SinghVs.

It is further case of the respondent-complainant that since the Ballygunge Police Station had not taken notice of the said letter dated30.09.2006, the complainant Radha Raman Das, the Branch Managerof ISKCON, Kolkata had filed a private complaint in the year 2009 inthe court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alipore, against the accused MadhuPandit Das, Chanchalpati Das, Mahajan Das and Adridharan Das seekinginvestigation under Section 156(3) of Cr.P.C. The said case was registeredas criminal case no. 747 of 2009 in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alipore.

It appears that the said Court Petition under Section 156(3) ofCr.P.C was registered as FIR being no. 33 at the Ballygunge PoliceStation on 20.02.2009 for the offences under Section 379/ 411/ 406/ 408/120-B/ 468/ 471 IPC. The investigating officer on the completion ofinvestigation submitted the charge-sheet being no. 58 in the court of ABCDEFGH661Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alipore against the accused Madhu PanditDas, Chanchalpati Das, Mahajan Das and Adridharan Das, for theoffences under Section 468, 471, 406 and 120-B IPC on 23.10.2010.

The appellant-accused Chanchalpati Das filed a petition beingCRR No. 1490 of 2013 and the appellant-accused Madhu Pandit Dasfiled a petition being CRR No. 3307/2013 before the High Court of Kolkata seeking quashing of proceedings of criminal case no. 747 of2009 pending before the CJM, Alipore. The High Court vide the commonimpugned judgement and order dismissed both the Criminal Revisions.

The learned Senior Advocate Mr. Shyam Divan for theappellants vehemently submitted that the prosecution initiated againstthe appellants by the respondent-complainant was only an attempt toharass the appellants under the guise of the bus theft case to settle thepersonal scores with appellants, as the appellants were able to createaround 30 ISKCON/Hare Krishna Movement associated Centres underthe aegis of ISKCON Bengaluru, who follow the teachings of SrilaPrabhupada, by keeping him as the sole Diksha Acharya. He furthersubmitted that the allegations in the complaint/FIR are not only absurdand improbable, but there is no reasonable possibility of the appellantsbeing convicted for the alleged offences after the trial. Relying upon thedocuments with regard to the transfer of registration of the bus in question, he submitted that the said bus was registered at Kolkata on 20.11.1998,however thereafter was registered at Bengaluru on 22.05.2002 afterthe execution of necessary documents of transfer and at present the busis lying in the dump yard at Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh. According to him, filing of an FIR in 2009 for the alleged theft of bus taken place in 2002,was sheer abuse of process of law. Even the Investigating Officer hasfailed to collect and produce any documents or evidence along with thecharge-sheet with regard to the alleged forgery and fabrication ofdocuments. Mr. Diwan has placed reliance on the decisions in State of Haryana and Ors. Vs. Bhajan Lal and Ors.1, in G. Sagar Suri and Anr. Vs. State of U.P. and Ors.2, in Madhavrao Jiwajirao Scindiaand Ors. Vs. Sambhajirao Chandrojirao Angre and Ors.3, in SubalGhorai and Ors. vs. State of West Bengal4 to buttress his submissions. Lastly, he submitted that to put a quietus in the matter, the ISKCON1 1992 Supp. (1) SCC 3352 (2000) 2 SCC 6363 (1988) 1 SCC 6924 2013 (4) SCC 607CHANCHALPATI DAS v. THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL &ANR. [BELA M. TRIVEDI, J.] ABCDEFGH662SUPREME COURT REPORTS[2023] 6 S.C.R.Bengaluru is ready and willing to purchase a latest model brand newAshok Leyland bus in the name of ISKCON Kolkata directly.

Per contra, learned Senior Advocate Mr. K. Venugopalappearing on behalf of respondent no. 2-complainant submitted that boththe appellants have been charged by the respondent no. 1 State for theoffence under Sections 468, 471, 406 and 120-B IPC as per the finalreport submitted by the investigating officer and there being a primafacie case made out against the appellants, which even the High Courthad recorded in the impugned order, this Court may not interfere withthe same. According to him, the documents of registration produced bythe appellants, claiming to have been received under the RTI from theconcerned Regional Transport Authority, Bengaluru, have been producedfor the first time before this Court and the same could not be taken intoconsideration. He further submitted that the underlying complaintpertained to only one luxury bus in comparison to the huge businessempire including real estate built by the appellant-accused, cannot detractfrom, or minimise the gravity of the offences of forgery, cheating andbreach of trust allegedly committed by the appellants. He also submittedthat the proposal of appellants-accused to give a new bus to ISKCONKolkata cannot be accepted, as the offences alleged against the appellantsare not compoundable under Section 320 of Cr.P.C. Mr. Venugopal hasplaced reliance on the decisions in Central Bureau of InvestigationVs. Maninder Singh5;State of Gujarat Vs. Gajanand M. Dalwadi(Dead) by LRS.6; Jasbir Singh vs. Tara Singh and Ors.7; JagdishRam Vs. State of Rajasthan & Anr.8; Kaptan Singh Vs. State of UttarPradesh and Ors.9; Central Bureau of Investigation Vs. ArvindKhanna10 in support of his submissions that the criminal proceedingsagainst the appellants may not be quashed.

Having gone through the pleadings of the parties and thedocuments on record and having anxiously considered the submissionsmade by the learned counsel for the parties, it emerges that according tothe complainant-respondent, a letter in the form of complaint was writtenby the Branch Manager of the ISKCON Kolkata, on 30.09.20065 (2016) 1 SCC 3896 (2008) 1 SCC 7167 (2016) 16 SCC 4418 (2004) 4 SCC 4329 (2021) 9 SCC 3510 (2019) 10 SCC 686 ABCDEFGH663addressed to the officer in-charge, Ballygunge Police Station, Kolkata, in respect of an alleged theft of a bus having taken place in 2001, however, no action was taken by the said police station. Though, the complainanthad reported the matter to the concerned Police Station earlier on 22ndMay, 2002, however, no action was taken in that regard. It is pertinent tonote that with regard to the said allegations against the concerned policestation, there is nothing on record to suggest that either the said reportdated 22.05.2002 or the letter dated 30.09.2006 was ever received bythe concerned police station or any follow up action was taken by therespondent-complainant in that regard. According to the respondent-complainant, since no action was taken on the letter dated 30th September,2006 written to the concerned Police Station, the complaint was lodgedin the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alipore on 10th February, 2009,which was registered as C.R. Case No. 747 of 2009, seeking investigationunder Section 156(3) of Cr.P.C.

It is again pertinent to note that, even as per the case of thecomplainant, the alleged incident of bus theft had taken place in the year2001, and it was only in 2009 that the substantial complaint was made inthe Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alipore. It is just not believablethat the concerned Ballygunge Police Station, Kolkata would not havetaken any action on the report made in 2002 on behalf of the powerfulbody like the ISKCON Kolkata, or on the letter dated 30.09.2006 writtenby the Branch Manager of the ISKCON, Kolkata. The respondent no.2-complainant also did not take any concrete action for getting the saidcomplaint registered with regard to the alleged theft of bus for a longperiod of eight years, till the complaint in the Court was filed in the year2009. In the opinion of the Court such an inordinate delay of eight yearsin filing the complaint in the court itself would be a sufficient ground toquash the proceedings. If the luxury bus owned by the ISKCON, KolkataBranch in 1998 was so precious to them, they would not have sat silentfor such a long time of eight years. In our opinion, the criminal machineryset into motion by filing the complaint for the alleged incident which hadtaken place eight years ago, that act itself was nothing but a sheer misuseand abuse of the process of the court.

That apart, from the bare perusal of the complaint filed beforethe Court, on the basis of which the FIR was registered at the BallygungePolice Station on 20th February, 2009, it is discernible that except baldallegations made in the complaint with regard to the theft of bus in questionCHANCHALPATI DAS v. THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL &ANR. [BELA M. TRIVEDI, J.] ABCDEFGH664SUPREME COURT REPORTS[2023] 6 S.C.R.there was no material or document produced by the complainant tosubstantiate the allegations against the appellants. Even after theinvestigation of the said complaint, there was no evidence collected bythe investigating officer to prima facie satisfy the ingredients constitutingthe alleged offences under Sections 468, 471, 406 and 120B of IPC.Even if the allegations made in the complaint as well as in the Chargesheetare taken at their face value none of the ingredients constituting thealleged offences are culled out. The learned Senior Counsel Mr. ShyamDivan for the appellants had strenuously urged relying upon the documentspertaining to the transfer of ownership and registration of the said bus, that the said documents were executed by the then authorized personsof the ISKCON Kolkata, in our opinion, the said documents could not beconsidered in these proceedings, the same being not the part of thecharge-sheet papers. In any case, there is nothing to suggest from theother documents on record of the instant appeals that the investigatingofficer had even bothered to collect any cogent or substantive evidenceagainst the appellants to prosecute them for the alleged offences. Therewas no expert opinion obtained or scientific evidence collected on thedocuments allegedly forged to show as to by whom, when and how thetheft of vehicle and forgery of documents were committed. Under thecircumstances, allowing such prosecution to continue would not only bean empty formality but would be gross wastage of court’s precious time.

It cannot be gainsaid that the High Courts have power toquash the proceedings in exercise of powers under Section 482 of Cr.P.C.to prevent the abuse of process of any Court or otherwise to secure theends of justice. Though the powers under Section 482 should be sparinglyexercised and with great caution, the said powers ought to be exercisedif a clear case of abuse of process of law is made out by the accused. Inthe State of Karnataka Vs. L. Muniswamy and Ors.11 had held thatthe criminal proceedings could be quashed by the High Court under Section 482 if the court is of the opinion that allowing the proceedings tocontinue would be an abuse of the process of the court or that the endsof justice require that the proceedings are to be quashed.

This Court, way back in 1992 in the landmark decision in caseof State of Haryana and Ors. Vs. Bhajan Lal and Ors (Supra), afterconsidering relevant provisions more particularly Section 482 of theCr.P.C. and the principles of law enunciated by this Court relating to the11 (1977) 2 SCC 699 ABCDEFGH665exercise of extra-ordinary powers under Article 226, had laid down certainguidelines for the exercise of powers of quashing, which have beenfollowed in umpteen number of cases. The relevant part thereof readsas under: “102. In the backdrop of the interpretation of the various relevantprovisions of the Code under Chapter XIV and of the principlesof law enunciated by this Court in a series of decisions relating tothe exercise of the extraordinary power under Article 226 or theinherent powers under Section 482 of the Code which we haveextracted and reproduced above, we give the following categoriesof cases by way of illustration wherein such power could beexercised either to prevent abuse of the process of any court orotherwise to secure the ends of justice, though it may not be possibleto lay down any precise, clearly defined and sufficientlychannelised and inflexible guidelines or rigid formulae and to givean exhaustive list of myriad kinds of cases wherein such powershould be exercised.

In State ofA.P. Vs. Golconda Linga Swamy & Another12this Court had observed that the Court would be justified to quash theproceedings if it finds that initiation or continuance of such proceedingswould amount to abuse of the process of Court.

As regards inordinate delay in filing the complaint it has beenrecently observed by this Court in Hasmukhlal D. Vora & Anr. vs. State of Tamil Nadu13 that though inordinate delay in itself may not bea ground for quashing of a criminal complaint, however unexplainedinordinate delay must be taken into consideration as a very crucial factorand ground for quashing a criminal complaint.

In the light of afore-stated legal position, if the facts of thecase are appreciated, there remains no shadow of doubt that the complaintfiled by the respondent-complainant after an inordinate unexplained delayof eight years was nothing but sheer misuse and abuse of the process oflaw to settle the personal scores with the appellants, and that continuationof such malicious prosecution would also be further abuse and misuse ofprocess of law, more particularly when neither the allegations made inthe complaint nor in the chargesheet, disclose any prima facie case againstthe appellants. The allegations made against the appellants are so absurdand improbable that no prudent person can ever reach to a conclusionthat there is a sufficient ground for proceeding against the appellants-accused.12 2004 (6) SCC 52213 2022 SCC Online SC 1732 ABCDEFGH66718. Before parting, a few observations made by this Court withregard to the misuse and abuse of the process of law by filing false andfrivolous proceedings in the Courts need to be reproduced. In the Court. In Dalip Singh vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others14 it was observedthat: “1. For many centuries Indian society cherished two basic valuesof life i.e. “satya” (truth) and “ahimsa” (non-violence). Mahavir, Gautam Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi guided the people to ingrainthese values in their daily life. Truth constituted an integral part ofthe justice-delivery system which was in vogue in the pre-Independence era and the people used to feel proud to tell truth inthe courts irrespective of the consequences. However, post-Independence period has seen drastic changes in our value system. The materialism has overshadowed the old ethos and the questfor personal gain has become so intense that those involved inlitigation do not hesitate to take shelter of falsehood, misrepresentation and suppression of facts in the courtproceedings.”

In Subrata Roy Sahara vs. Union of India and Others15 itwas observed as under: “191. The Indian judicial system is grossly afflicted with frivolouslitigation. Ways and means need to be evolved to deter litigantsfrom their compulsive obsession towards senseless and ill-considered claims.”