Delhi High Court: In a matter filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), challenging an order passed by the Additional Sessions Judge (‘ASJ’), which had dismissed the petitioner’ application seeking impleadment and the right to be heard in all the revision petitions pending before the ASJ, Navin Chawla, J., held that while a complainant possesses the right to be heard, it does not automatically confer upon them the right of impleadment.
Background
In December 1994, the petitioner company was approached by several accused persons with a proposal to finance a hotel project near Connaught Place, New Delhi. The accused assured the petitioner that they would invest Rs. 21 crores in the respondent company if the petitioner invested Rs. 7 crores and took a 25% equity participation. Trusting these assurances, the petitioner agreed to the arrangement, entering a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), and subsequently issued a cheque for Rs. 70 lacs as part of the agreed investment.
The petitioner alleged that the accused used a similar fraudulent modus operandi, falsely assuring that they had collected the necessary equity and inducing the petitioner to invest an additional Rs. 6.3 crores and approximately Rs. 9.5 crores in interest-bearing security deposits between November 1995 and April 1996. However, the accused did not make the promised equity contributions and instead rotated the money through various group companies to create an illusion of equity infusion, thereby defrauding the petitioner.
Based on these allegations, an FIR was registered Penal Code (IPC), including cheating and forgery. The first charge-sheet against the accused was filed in November 2003, followed by supplementary charge-sheets in 2004 and 2005, further detailing the fraudulent activities and forged documents created by the accused, including a forged Power of Attorney and a false MoU. The petitioner also filed additional complaints leading to the registration of further FIRs with similar charges. Subsequently, the Trial Court framed charges against the accused in all these FIRs in December 2021, including charges under Section 420 read with Section 120B of the IPC, and other related sections.
The accused filed criminal revision petitions challenging the orders of the Trial Court. The petitioner sought to be impleaded and heard in these revision petitions. However, the ASJ dismissed the petitioner’s applications, allowing them only to assist through the Additional Public Prosecutor (APP). Aggrieved by this decision, the petitioner filed the present petition under Section 482 of the CrPC, seeking to challenge the ASJ’s order of October 2023, which denied their impleadment and direct participation in the pending revision petitions.
Decision and Analysis
The Court observed that the question to be decided was whether in the revision petition filed by the accused challenging the order passed by the Magistrate refusing to discharge the accused, the victim/complainant could, as a matter of right, seek impleadment, or only had a right to be heard, or only had a right to assist the Public Prosecutor.
The Court reviewed certain provisions of the CrPC relevant to the matter. Section 225 of the CrPC stated that in every trial before a Court of Session, the prosecution had to be conducted by a Public Prosecutor. Sub-Section (8) of Section 24 of the CrPC provided that the Central or State Government could appoint a Special Public Prosecutor for any case or class of cases and the court could permit the victim to engage an advocate to assist the prosecution.
The Court referred to Rekha Murarka v. State of W.B. (2020) 2 SCC 474, the Supreme Court explained that the term ‘assist’ in Section 24(8) implied that the victim’s counsel was only to have a secondary role to the Public Prosecutor. The original Amendment Bill to CrPC had used the words “coordinate with the prosecution,” but this was changed to “assist,” indicating an intention to assign a supportive role to the victim’s counsel. The Court noted that allowing the victim’s counsel to make oral arguments and cross-examine witnesses constituted a parallel prosecution and could have adverse consequences on the fairness of a trial. The Public Prosecutor’s role was highlighted as crucial due to their experience and duty to act independently and fairly.
The Court also referred to Section 301 of the CrPC, which stated that the Public Prosecutor or Assistant Public Prosecutor in charge of a case would conduct the prosecution, and any private person instructing a pleader to prosecute could do so under the directions of the Public Prosecutor, and with the court’s permission, could submit written arguments after the evidence was closed. Section 302 of the CrPC allowed any Magistrate to permit the prosecution to be conducted by any person other than a police officer below the rank of Inspector, but such permission was required.
The Court observed that the jurisprudence with respect to the right of the victim to be heard and to participate in criminal proceedings had evolved positively, with recent amendments to the CrPC recognizing the victim’s rights and further emphasized that denying the victim the right to be heard would be a denial of justice.
The Court considered whether the right to be heard in a State case could be uplifted to a right to be impleaded in a criminal revision and noted that Section 403 of the CrPC stated that in a criminal revision, no party had a right to be heard unless the Revisional Court thought fit to hear them, Section 401(2) of the CrPC required that no order prejudicial to the accused or other person be made without giving them an opportunity to be heard.
In view of the above, the Court partially set aside the impugned order by the ASJ and further directed that the petitioner be given a fair and reasonable opportunity of hearing in the above-mentioned revision petitions pending before it.
The Court concluded that while the victim/complainant had a right to be heard in the revision proceedings, such right did not extend to a right to be impleaded in the criminal revision.
[VLS Finance Ltd v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2024 SCC OnLine Del 3908, Decided on 24-05-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
Advocates for the Petitioner: Bharat Chugh, Jai Allagh, Maanish M. Choudhary, Ashok Kr. Sharma
Advocates for the State: Aman Usman, APP, Vijay Agarwal, Gurpreet Singh, Jatin S. Sethi
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