Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – s.482 – Penal Code, 1860 – ss.419, 420, 467, 468, 471 – Quashing of criminal complaint – Testator on account of the fear of his estate being jeopardized by the alcoholic obsessions of his third son, bequeathed his properties in favour of the appellants-daughters-in-law by executing unregistered Will – After death of testator, third son executed a registered sale deed for his share in testator’s property in favour of the complainant – Unaware of the same, the appellants filed for mutation on the basis of will, and favourable mutation order was passed – Appellants then filed for permanent injunction against the complainant and exparte interim order was passed – Complainant raised objections against the mutation order but the same were rejected – Subsequently, complainant filed an application u/s.156(3) CrPC alleging that one of the testator’s son entered into a conspiracy with the appellants and forged a fraudulent unregistered Will after the death of the testator to circumvent the said sale deed by the third son in favour of the complainant – Complaint proceedings initiated – Quashing application by the appellants – Dismissed by High Court – Correctness: Held: None of the offences alleged against the appellants made out – Neither any criminal breach of trust nor cheating by impersonation found – No cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property found – Writ large on the face of the record that the complaint case has been employed as a circuitous tool to abuse the process of law, especially after the complainant failed to pursue the remedies available to it – Chronology of events indicates that the criminal proceedings were instituted only after approximately seven years of the mutation order, four years after the ex-parte ad-interim order and three years after the rejection of the objections to the Mutation Order – Instant case seeks to disguise a civil dispute as criminal – Complaint case against the appellants has been pending for over two decades and its continuation would not serve any purpose – Impugned order of the High Court set-aside – Proceedings in complaint case quashed. [Paras 8.4-8.6, 9, 10]
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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