Supreme Court: While deciding the instant appeal by a husband and wife (appellants) aggrieved by the decision of Single Judge Bench of Calcutta High Court rejecting the appellants’ criminal revisions, the Division Bench of Sudhanshu Dhulia* and Ahsanuddin Amanullah, JJ., clarified the directions issued by the Supreme Court in Priyanka Srivastava v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2015) 6 SCC 287, all applications before the Court where Section 156(3), CrPC applications are made must be supported by an affidavit duly sworn by the applicant who seeks to invoke the jurisdiction of the Magistrate. Such a step could only be prospective in nature, and this is clearly reflected from the very language used by the Judges in Priyanka Srivastava (supra).
Background:
The appellants are accused in 2 different cases under Sections 120-B, 420, 467, 468, 469, 471 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’), read with Section 66A(a)(b)(c) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (‘IT Act’); and, Sections 466, 469, 471 read with 120-B(ii) of IPC. The nature of allegations in these two cases is similar against the appellants, relating to forgery, fraud, deception, cheating, damage caused to reputation, unlawful extraction of money, threat, misrepresentation and criminal conspiracy etc.
The appellants had contended before the High Court that FIRs against them were motivated and false, and thus liable to be quashed, but also that the second FIR had been registered on the complaint which was filed before the Magistrate under Section 156(3) of CrPC, and it was not accompanied by an affidavit and therefore, the law as laid down by this Court in Priyanka Srivastava v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2015) 6 SCC 287, has been violated as all such complaints should now be accompanied by an affidavit.
The Single Judge Bench of the High Court had opined that directions in Priyanka Shrivastava (supra) could only operate prospectively and will not have any retrospective application and will thus not be applicable to the complaint lodged against the appellants in the year 2010-2011.
In the instant appeal, the appellants argued that all the judgments of Supreme Court are retrospective in nature and therefore it cannot be said that this would not be retrospective particularly when it has not been specifically stated in the judgment of Priyanka Srivastava (supra) that it will operate prospectively.
Court’s Assessment:
Perusing the contentions, the Court pointed out that the law of prospective and retrospective operation is absolutely clear. Whereas a law made by the legislature is always prospective in nature unless it has been specifically stated in the statute itself about its retrospective operation, the opposite is true for the law which is laid down by a Constitutional Court, or law as it is interpretated by the Court.
The judgment of the Court will always be retrospective in nature unless the judgment itself specifically states that the judgment will operate prospectively. The prospective operation of a judgment is normally done to avoid any unnecessary burden to persons or to avoid undue hardships to those who in good faith had done something with the understanding of the law as it existed at the relevant point of time. Further, it is done not to unsettle something which has long been settled, as that would cause injustice to many.
Perusing Priyanka Shrivastava (supra), it was observed that the issue was regarding frivolous complaints being filed before the Magistrate only to harass people. The Court highlighted Para 30 of Priyanka Srivastava (supra) case wherein the Court began its direction with “In our considered opinion, a stage has come in this country …” which signified that what the Court intended was that from now onward it would be necessary that an application would be accompanied by an affidavit.
Therefore, on basis of the afore-stated analysis, the Court opined that the High Court was right in holding that the direction that a complaint will be accompanied by an affidavit, will be prospective in nature. Hence, the instant appeals were dismissed.
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