Supreme Court: In a criminal appeal assailing the Allahabad High Court’s judgment, whereby the accused person’s application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (‘CrPC’) to quash the chargesheet and proceedings for an offence under Section 354 and 506 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) was allowed, the Division Bench of CT Ravikumar and Sanjay Karol*, JJ. held that the sum total of the circumstances, submissions and documents on record, did not point to the committal of any offence against the complainant. Hence, the Court set aside the impugned judgement of the High Court of Judicature and resultantly, the criminal proceedings arising out of FIR were also quashed qua the present accused person.
Factual Matrix
The accused person/ appellant and respondent 2 are Directors of a joint concern. There were allegations and counter allegations regarding mishandling the company’s finances. In July 2019, the accused person sought to end this partnership. Thereafter, respondent 2 filed a complaint before the Senior Superintendent of Police, alleging that brother of the accused person along with another depicted inappropriate behaviour in the workplace and threatened of murder. The First Information Report (‘FIR’) was registered under Sections 354 and 506 of the IPC. The accused person filed a petition in the High Court seeking protection from arrest and the quashing of the subject FIR. Such a prayer to quash was refused but protection from arrest was granted till submission of the final report. Chargesheet was filed stating that the offences were found to be made out.
Vide the impugned order, the Court refused the prayer under Section 482 of the CrPC, observing that only malicious or mala fide institution of proceedings warrants interference by way of the inherent powers of the High Court.
Analysis and Decision
The Court reiterated that for Section 354 of the IPC to apply, the offence must be committed against a woman; criminal force must be applied against her; and such application of force must be with the intent to outrage her modesty. Regarding the meaning of the word modesty, the Court noted that in Rupan Deol Bajaj v. Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, (1995) 6 SCC 194, it was observed that the word ‘modesty’ has not been defined in the IPC, and according to Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (3rd Edn.) modesty is the quality of being modest and in relation to a woman means “womanly propriety of behaviour; scrupulous chastity of thought, speech and conduct”. The Court stated that, it is well settled that for mens rea to be established, something better than vague statements must be produced before the Court.
In the matter at hand, the Court, keeping in view the contents of the FIR, the statement in the final report of the investigating officer, and the statement under Section 164 of the CrPC of the complainant, viewed that prima facie the ingredients for an offence under Section 354 were not met.
Further, for an offence under Section 503 of the IPC to be established, it must be shown that- (1) Threatening a person with any injury; (i) to his person, reputation or property; or (ii) to the person, or reputation of anyone in whom that person is interested. (2) Such threat must be intentional; (i) to cause alarm to that person; or (ii) to cause that person to do any act which he is not legally bound to do as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat; or (iii) to cause that person to omit to do any act which that person is legally entitled to do as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat.
Referring to Manik Taneja v. State of Karnataka, (2015) 7 SCC 423 and Sharif Ahmed v. State of U.P., 2024 SCC OnLine SC 726, the Court reiterated that for an offence of criminal intimidation to be prima facie established, the intention should be clearly visible, and the same is to be established by the evidence on record. The Court said that the FIR, interim investigation report and the chargesheet, did not disclose any offence having been committed by the accused person.
Thus, the Court allowed the appeal and set aside the impugned decision.
CASE DETAILS
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Citation: Appellants : Respondents : |
Advocates who appeared in this case For Petitioner(s): For Respondent(s): |
CORAM :
CT Ravikumar, J.
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