Constitution of India – Art. 136 – Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – s. 482 – Penal Code, 1860 – ss. 354A, 342, 509, and
504 – Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 – ss. 7 and 8 – Schedule Cast and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 – School teacher sexually assaulted the girl student in the Higher Secondary aged 16 years, by rubbing her breast – FIR lodged against the teacher by the father of the minor victim under Penal Code, POCSO Act and SC/ST Act – Three weeks later the offender and the complainant entered into a compromise, and the teacher filed petition u/s.
482 for quashing the FIR – Thereafter, the High Court quashed the FIR and all further proceedings – Appellant, ordinary men residing in the same District to which the complainant belongs, challenged the order quashing the FIR and all further proceedings u/Art. 32 which was converted into a Special Leave Petition u/Art. 136 – High Court, if has power to quash the proceedings and the FIR in regard to heinous and serious offence having serious impact on society, merely because the offender and victim or parents of the victim arrived at a compromise – Third party to a criminal proceeding, if has locus standi to challenge the order quashing the FIR and all further proceedings pursuant thereto based on a compromise arrived at by the parties:
Held: Rubbing the breast of a child would constitute an offence of ‘sexual assault’ u/s.7 of POCSO Act – Commission of such offences against the children should be viewed as heinous and serious – Commission of such offences cannot be taken lightly as offences of private nature and in fact, such offences are bound to be taken as offences against the society – Objects and reasons for the enactment of the POCSO Act, show that quashment of proceeding initiated under POCSO Act abruptly by invoking the power u/s.482, without permitting it to mature into a trial, except on extremely compelling reasons, would go against the very intention of the legislature behind the enactment – Power u/s.482 cannot be used to quash proceedings based on compromise if it is in respect of heinous offence which are not private in nature and have a serious impact on the society – Without even referring to the alleged offence and thereby without looking into the nature and gravity of the offence, solely relying upon the compromise, impugned order was passed – High Court misread and misapplied the law laid down to quash the FIR and all further proceedings based in pursuance thereof – Statement annexed to the FIR of the complainant itself reveal that the teacher had put pressure on the complainant to restrain him from lodging report, and thereafter, compromise was entered immediately – Despite the said position, the Court did not chose to consider whether the compromise entered into between the parties could be acted upon or not, in the interest of justice, taking note of the serious allegations levelled against the teacher – Right to a third party to prefer petition u/Art.136 is certainly to be recognised and respected in a case where seemingly miscarriage of justice had occurred and still, neither State nor victim or any relative falling under the term ‘victim’ approached this Court – In view of compromise entered into between the parties, chance of conviction is remote and bleak also cannot be a ground to abruptly terminate the investigation, by quashing FIR and all further proceedings pursuant thereto, by invoking the power u/s.482 – Thus, the impugned order of High Court quashed and set aside. [Paras 12, 20, 25-28, 32, 33]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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