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Parteek Bansal vs. State of Rajasthan & Ors.

Not available · 2024 INSC 324Decided 19 Apr 2024
Not available
Justice Vikram Nath · Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra

Background

The appellant, a Chartered Accountant, married respondent No. 3, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, in March 2015 after their families connected over the internet. Around October 2015, the bride's father (respondent No. 2) filed a dowry-harassment complaint (FIR No. 19/2015 under Section 498A/34 IPC) at Hisar, Haryana. Just days later, he filed a second complaint over the same set of allegations at Udaipur, Rajasthan, leading to a second FIR (No. 156/2015) against the appellant under Sections 498A, 406, 384, 420 and 120B IPC. The appellant sought to have this second, duplicate FIR quashed by the Rajasthan High Court, but his petition was dismissed, leading to this appeal before the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that lodging a second FIR at a different police station over the same allegations already covered by an earlier, still-pending FIR amounts to an abuse of the legal process. The Court found that the complainants had misused their position (the bride being a serving police officer) by pursuing parallel prosecutions, neither appearing at the Hisar trial nor withdrawing that complaint, apparently to harass the appellant with two simultaneous trials. The Court allowed the appeal, quashed the Rajasthan High Court's order along with the second FIR (No. 156/2015), and, deprecating this misuse of the machinery of the state, imposed costs of Rs. 5,00,000 on the complainant, to be split between the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee and the appellant.

Lesson Learnt

The law does not permit a complainant to file successive FIRs on the same set of facts at different locations; courts will quash a duplicate FIR as an abuse of process, and may even penalize a complainant found to be using the criminal justice system as a tool of harassment.

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

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