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Ramgopal v. The State of Madhya Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 568Decided 29 Sept 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 1489 of 2012
Chief Justice N.V. Ramana · Justice Surya Kant

Background

Following a monetary dispute in the year 2000, the appellants assaulted the complainant, severing a finger, and were convicted under Section 326 IPC (voluntarily causing grievous hurt): an offence that cannot ordinarily be "compounded" (settled and dropped) under the Code of Criminal Procedure. Years later, the appellants and the complainant reconciled and reached a compromise, but the trial court, appellate court and High Court all held they had no power to let the case end on that basis since the offence was non-compoundable, though sentences were progressively reduced. The appellants approached the Supreme Court, asking it to use its special constitutional powers to end the case given the genuine settlement.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that while ordinary courts cannot compound non-compoundable offences under Section 320 CrPC, it has the extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution to quash criminal proceedings even in such cases, where the offence is of a private/personal nature and does not reflect serious mental depravity or harm to society at large. Weighing factors such as the non-heinous nature of the injury, the voluntary and long-standing reconciliation between neighbours, and the many years since the 2000 incident, the Court quashed the conviction and proceedings and deemed the appellants acquitted. (A separate, similarly-tagged appeal involving a different set of parties and facts was disposed of on different, conditional terms in the same order, but that is not the matter covered by this diary number.)

Lesson Learnt

Even for offences the law treats as "non-compoundable," the Supreme Court can step in using its special constitutional powers to end a prosecution where the dispute was fundamentally personal, the injury not especially grave, and both sides have genuinely and voluntarily made peace, though this is an extraordinary remedy, not a routine one.

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

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