Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973:
s. 482 – Petition under – Seeking quashing of FIR registered u/s. 34, 471, 468, 467, 420, 419 and 406 IPC against a company engaged in manufacture, import and sale of passenger vehicles – High Court rejected prayer for quashing the FIR – Special Leave Petition – Plea that police cannot investigate an issue, the substratum of which is subjudice before Supreme Court against order passed by National Green Tribunal (NGT) and that there was long delay in lodging the complaint – Held: If perusal of FIR leads to disclosure of an offence even broadly, law courts are barred from usurping jurisdiction of police – The order of NGT (appeal against which is pending before Supreme Court) passed on the applications which were broad and general, cannot be taken as an impediment to lodge a complaint, for an individual purchaser of car – Substratum of police complaint cannot be said to be subjudice before Supreme Court – Interference with impugned order not called for. Dismissing the SLP, the Court
HELD: 1. The law is well settled that Courts would not thwart any investigation. If a perusal of the first information report leads to disclosure of an offence even broadly, law courts are barred from usurping the jurisdiction of the police, since the two organs of the State operate in two specific spheres of activities and one ought not to tread over the other sphere. [Para 41][798G-H; 799-C] King Emperor v. Khwaja Nazir Ahmed AIR 1945 PC 18; State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal (1992) 1 Suppl. SCC 335 : [1990] 3 Suppl. SCR 259; S.M. Datta v. State of Gujarat (2001) 7 SCC 659 : [2001] 2 Suppl. SCR 140 – relied on.
2. The mere delay on the part of the 3 rd Respondentcomplainant in lodging the complaint, cannot by itself be a ground to quash the FIR. The question whether the 3 rd Respondentcomplainant purchased 3 vehicles as revealed by the VAHAN Portal of the Government or 7 vehicles as claimed by him in his complaint, is a question of fact which has to be established only in the course of investigation/trial. In a petition for quashing the FIR, the Court cannot go into disputed questions of fact. [Paras 18, 19][793-F-G]
3. The order of the NGT, passed on the applications filed by certain individuals not claiming as purchasers of vehicles, cannot be taken as an impediment for an individual who purchased cars from the manufacturers, to lodge a complaint, if he has actually suffered on account of any representation made by the manufacturers. Two original applications came to be filed before the NGT in the year 2015, alleging that the manufacturers of the vehicles in question were employing deceit devices. The filing of the original applications coincided with the issue of notice by the Automotive Research Association of India to the manufacturers. The applicants before the NGT had not sought any relief for themselves, as purchasers of vehicles. The reliefs sought by the applicants before the NGT were broad and general. This is why the NGT, by its final order dated 07.03.2019 directed only the CPCB to consider the initiation of prosecution in the light of the applicable statutory regime, while ordering the manufacturers to deposit Rs.500 crores as compensation for the damage caused to the environment. The interim order passed by this Court not to take any coercive steps has to be understood only in the context of the directions of the NGT which had became the subject matter of the Civil Appeals. [Paras 21, 22, 23 and 27][794-B-E; 795-A]
4. The question whether deceit devices are installed in the cars purchased by the 3rd respondent and the question whether there was any representation in this regard to the petitioner, are all questions of fact, peculiar and particular to the 3rd respondent. NGT had no occasion to examine the cars purchased by the 3rd respondent. At this stage no one can presume whether the defence of the manufacturer to the police complaint will be purely on a question of fact or purely on a question of law or on mixed questions of fact and law. If the petitioner takes a defence that no such devices were installed in the cars purchased by the 3 rd respondent or that there was no (mis) representation in this regard, it will be a pure question of fact, which cannot be gone into in a quash petition. If the petitioner takes a defence that the installation of such devices, though true, does not violate any law, then it will be a pure question of law. The Court may be entitled to go into this question in a quash petition, provided the petitioner comes up with a categorical admission that they had installed such devices and yet there was no violation of the law. The petitioner is not expected to disclose their defence at this stage nor can it be speculated what type of defence the petitioner would have to the prosecution. [Para 37][797-C-F]
5. The proceedings before the NGT were not intended to address issues relating to individuals, such as (i) whether any emissions manipulation software, called in common parlance as ‘defeat devices’ were installed in the vehicles purchased by certain individuals; and (ii) whether any representation was made to the purchasers of the cars in which such devices had been installed, about the emission efficiency level of the cars. Therefore, it is not correct to say that the substratum of the police complaint is something that is already the subject matter of adjudication before this Court in the appeals arising out of the order of the NGT. As a matter of fact, the High Court has been fair to the petitioner, by granting protection against arrest till the filing of the report under section 173(2) of Cr. P.C. [Paras 39, 40][798-D-G]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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