Allahabad High Court
Satyavir And 14 Others vs State Of U.P. And 2 Others on 17 June, 2021
Bench: Munishwar Nath Bhandari, Ajai Tyagi
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 48
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 3891 of 2021
Petitioner :- Satyavir And 14 Others
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Mrityunjay Dwivedi,Pramod Kumar Dwivedi
Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.
Hon'ble Munishwar Nath Bhandari,J.
Hon'ble Ajai Tyagi,J.
By this writ petition, a challenge is made to the F.I.R. dated 09.05.2021 registered as Case Crime No. 108 of 2021 under Sections 147, 148, 452, 323, 504, 506 I.P.C. read with Section 3(2)(v) of S.C./S.T. Act, Police Station Hathras Junction, District Hathras.
Learned counsel submits that a case for commission of offence under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (for short "Act of 1989") is not made out because alleged incident did not take place at a place with public view. The incident, alleged in the F.I.R., said to have taken place in the house.
In view of the above, the F.I.R. in reference to the commission of offence under the Act of 1989 is not made out.
It is further submitted that no one has sustained injury and thereby even other offence are not made out and otherwise the offences are punishable with the punishment of less than seven years imprisonment.
Accordingly, the prayer is to quash the F.I.R. A prayer for protection from the arrest has also been made.
We have considered the submissions made by the counsel for the petitioners and perused the record.
The challenge in the F.I.R. has been made mainly in reference to the offence under the Act of 1989 and for that a prima-facie case is made out, but the F.I.R. contains other allegations also and for that the provisions of I.P.C. in each offence has been disclosed. This is for offence under Sections 452, 323, 504, 506 I.P.C.
The offences aforesaid and more specifically Section 323 does not require serious injury. The F.I.R. can be quashed only when a case is made out on a ground set up by the Apex Court in the case of State of Haryana and others Vs. Bhajan Lal and others, 1992 Supp. (1) S.C.C. 335. An F.I.R. cannot be quashed only for the reason that the offences, other than the Act of 1989, are punishable for less than seven years. That cannot be a ground to quash the F.I.R.
In view of the above and as the case is not covered by the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Bhajan Lal (supra), we are not inclined to quash the F.I.R. and accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed.
The dismissal of the writ petition would not mean any observation on merit rather petitioners would be at liberty to pursue appropriate bail application, as is permissible under the law by referring to the same arguments and more specifically in reference to the offence under the Act of 1989.
In that case, the observation made in this judgment would not be taken to be adverse in any manner rather consideration of bail would be on its merit.
The writ petition is dismissed with the aforesaid observations.
Order Date :- 17.6.2021
Nirmal Sinha
