Allahabad High Court
Ranjeet vs State Of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Home Lko. ... on 18 April, 2025
Author: Manish Kumar
Bench: Manish Kumar
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH
?Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC-LKO:21923
Court No. - 14
Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 2519 of 2025
Applicant :- Ranjeet
Opposite Party :- State Of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Home Lko. And 4 Others
Counsel for Applicant :- Rajesh Kumar,Suhail Kashif
Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.
Hon'ble Manish Kumar,J.
1. Vakalatnama filed by Shri Sudheer Kumar, learned counsel on behalf of the respondent nos. 2 and 3 is taken on record.
2. The present application under Section 482 Cr.P.C has been preferred with the prayer to quash the entire proceedings of Crimi nal Trial No. : 145 of 2018, arising out of Case Crime No.: 139 of 201 8, State V/s Ranjeet, Under-Section 363,366,376 I.P.C and POC SO Act., Police Station- Ram Nagar, District: Barabanki. Pending in the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge / Special Judge, Court No.44, District: Barabanki., as contained in Annexure No. 1 to the instant petition, in the interest of Law and Justice.
3. Learned counsel for the applicant and learned counsel for respondent nos. 2 and 3 have submitted that a compromise has been entered into between the parties i.e the applicant, respondent no. 2 i.e. complainant and respondent no. 3 i.e. the victim. In pursuance thereof, the applicant earlier also approached this court by filing an application under Section 482 Cr.P.C No. 9959 of 2024 and this court, by its judgment and order dated 22.11.2024, had sent the matter to the court concerned for the purposes of verification of compromise entered into between the parties.
4. After hearing learned counsel for the parties it is found that the victim has been declared hostile during the trial and the applicant and the victim have solemnised their marriage on 23.04.2018 in Arya Samaj Mandir and the certified copy of the certificate issued by the Arya Samaj Mandir has been enclosed as Annexure No. 8 to the present application.
5. Learned counsel for the respondent nos. 2 and 3 has further submitted that the applicant and the victim are now married, having 2 children out of their wedlock and are leading a happy married life, so respondent no. 2 does not want to proceed any further in the criminal case and the proceedings of the same may be quashed. In support of their submissions, learned counsels for the parties have relied upon the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Mahesh Mukund Patel versus State of U.P and others. The relevant paragraph nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9 are as quoted hereinbelow:-
"6. Our attention is invited to the affidavit filed by the third respondent in which she has accepted the fact that she is happily married to the appellant and they have been residing together. She has disclosed her date of birth as 20th July, 1998. In the record of the Primary School, as can be seen from document at Annexure ?P-1?, the date of birth of the third respondent is shown as 20th July, 1998. Ossification test was conducted during the investigation. The report of the test is that on the date of commission of the offence, the age of the third respondent may be between 17 1?2 years to 19 years. There are documents on record to show that the date of birth of the third respondent was 20th July, 1998. Therefore, when the offence was allegedly committed in September, 2016 she was already a major.
7. Now that the appellant and third respondent are happily married, no purpose will be served by continuing the prosecution as it will cause undue harassment to the appellant, the third respondent and their children.
8. Coming to the impugned order, we find that the marriage certificate was placed on record before the High Court. In fact, no objection by the first informant is also recorded in the impugned order. Surprisingly, the High Court instead of entertaining the petition for quashing on the ground of settlement, has observed that the application for dropping criminal proceedings on the basis compromise may be moved before the Trial Court. The High Court completely lost sight of the fact that the Trial Court could not have recorded the settlement and in fact, this was a fit case for the High Court to have exercised its jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. by quashing the proceedings. Unnecessarily, the parties have been forced to come to this Court.
9. The impugned order is set aside. FIR No.567 of 2016 registered with Cholapur Police Station, District Varanasi and proceedings of the Sessions Trial No.1332 of 2021 pending before the Special Judge, POCSO Act, Varanasi are hereby quashed. "
6. The copy of the verification order dated 12.12.2024, passed by the trial court has been enclosed as Annexure No. 11 to the affidavit filed along with the application.
7. Learned A.G.A is unable to dispute the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the parties and the judgments relied upon by the learned counsel for the applicant.
8. Considering the aforesaid as also the submissions made by learned Counsel for the parties as also the observations made by Apex Court in the case of State of Karnataka Vs. L. Muniswamy and Others, 1977 (2) SCC 699; State of Haryana Vs. Bhajan Lal and Others, 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335; Prashant Bharti Vs. State (NCT of Delhi), (2013) 9 SCC 293; Rajiv Thapar and Ors. Vs. Madan Lal Kapoor, (2013) 3 SCC 330; Ahmad Ali Quraishi and Ors. Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors. (2020) 13 SCC 435, according to which inherent power under Section 482 Cr.P.C. (akin to Section 528 BNSS, 2023) could be exercised to prevent abuse of process of any Court or otherwise to secure ends of justice, as also the observations made by Apex Court in the case of Ramgopal and others Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2022) 14 SCC 531, Gian Singh Vs. State of Punjab [2012 10 SCC 303], Mohd. Ibrahim Vs. State of U.P., 2022 SCC Online ALL 106, Gold Quest International Ltd. Vs. State of Tamilnadu, 2014 (15) SCC 235, B.S. Joshi Vs. State of Haryana, 2003 (4) SCC 675, Jitendra Raghuvanshi Vs. Babita Raghuvanshi, 2013(4) SCC 58, Madhavarao Jiwajirao Scindia Vs. Sambhajirao Chandrojirao Angre, 1988 1 SCC 692, Nikhil Merchant Vs. C.B.I. and another, 2008(9) SCC 677, Manoj Sharma Vs. State and others, 2008(16) SCC 1, State of M.P. Vs. Laxmi Narayan and others, 2019(5) SCC 688, Narindra Singh and others Vs. State of Punjab and another, (2014) 6 SCC 466, Manoj Kumar and others Vs. State of U.P and others (2008) 8 SCC 781, Union Carbide Corporation and others Vs. Union of India and others (1991) 4 SCC 584, Manohar Lal Sharma Vs. Principal Secretary and others (2014) 2 SCC 532 and Supreme Court Bar Association Vs. Union of India (1998) 4 SCC 409, according to which, in given facts, based upon the settlement entered into between the parties as mentioned above, proceedings can be quashed, as also the nature of dispute/crime, this Court is of the view that the present application is liable to be allowed as chances of ultimate conviction are extremely bleak and hence no useful purpose would be served by allowing the criminal proceedings to continue.
9. Accordingly, present application is allowed. Consequently, the entire proceedings, quoted above, are hereby quashed as far as it is related to the the applicant.
10. Office/Registry is directed to send the copy of this order to the court concerned through email/fax for necessary compliance.
Order Date :- 18.4.2025
DiVYa
