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Govind Prasad Kejriwal v. State of Bihar & Anr.

Criminal Appeal · 2020 INSC 125Decided 31 Jan 2020
Criminal Appeal No. 168 of 2020
Justice Ashok Bhushan · Justice M.R. Shah

Background

A dispute within a family-run cinema business led the brother of one of the firm's partners to file a criminal complaint against the appellant (also a partner's relative) alleging theft, assault and wrongful restraint over a locked cinema hall. The appellant had separately filed his own police complaint against the same group alleging theft of equipment, and a related civil suit over the partnership had already been filed and withdrawn. Both the trial court and the Patna High Court refused to discharge the appellant or quash the criminal proceedings against him.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the dispute was essentially a civil/partnership matter dressed up as a criminal complaint: the complainant was not even a partner in the firm, and taking the complaint's own allegations at face value, none of the essential ingredients of theft, assault or wrongful restraint were made out. Exercising its inherent power to prevent abuse of the legal process, the Court found continuing the prosecution would itself be an abuse of the court's process. It accordingly quashed both the Magistrate's order taking cognizance and the High Court's judgment, and quashed the criminal proceedings in their entirety.

Lesson Learnt

Criminal courts should not be used to settle what is essentially a civil or business dispute; where a complaint's own allegations do not establish the ingredients of the offences charged, the Supreme Court will step in to quash the proceedings as an abuse of process.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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