The Apex Court on 15.02.2019 , in PROF R K VIJAYASARATHY & ANR  v SUDHA SEETHARAM & ANR[1] ,had allowed the appeal which  had been made against the High Court of Karnantaka’s  order and judgment wherein the appellants prayer had been rejected for quashing the criminal proceedings .

FACTS:

The appellants’ son (Rajiv) and the respondent’s daughter (Savitha), after being wedded had moved to USA where the wife had given birth to a child. Due to the wife’s involvement in an accident, there were proceedings which were initiated against Savitha.  The appellants had alleged that upon the fear of attaching the property of their son in the proceedings, an amount of twenty lakhs had been transferred by the appellants’ son into the respondent’s bank account.

Apparently, things were not going smooth in the marriage between the couple resulting in the separation followed by many rounds of litigation in courts. A private complaint was filed by the wife against her husband and in-laws where she had alleged them of offences such as dowry and criminal intimidation. The proceeding against the appellant was quashed by the High Court of Karnataka. A civil suit was filed against the respondent for recovering the money by Rajiv for retuning the money that had been transferred by Rajiv into his wife’s account which was pending.

The family Court had dismissed the divorce petitions which were filed by the wife .Further, a private complaint was filed by the first respondent forming the subject matter of the aforesaid appeal.

It had been alleged by the first respondent that the amount that had been deposited had been returned to the appellants along with interest. It was contended that such civil suit was devoid of any merit and that appellant and his parents have collude for siphoning the amount.

The complaint was referred for investigation by the Additional Metropolitan Magistrate under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 wherein, an FIR was registered under Sections 405, 406, 415 and 420 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code.  Being aggrieved, by the High Court’s order and judgment for rejecting the petition for quashing the FIR, the above mentioned appeal had been filed by the appellant.

ISSUE:

Has the High Court committed an error when it rejected the appellant’s plea to quash the criminal proceedings against them?

DECISION HELD BY THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA:

The Supreme Court of  India, while permitting the appeal and setting aside the  High Court’s judgment held that a civil suit was instituted by the appellants son  for recovering the money against the first respondent by further stating, that  the complaint had been filed six years later from  the transaction date and almost after a period of three years from the date of filing the suit. The Supreme Court of India, upheld that the averments specified in  the complaint,  do not  reveal the necessary ingredients that were required to constitute the offence mentioned in IPC and that the first respondent  had attempted  in cloaking a civil dispute  in the guise of a  criminal nature in spite of the necessary ingredients being missing   for constituting  a criminal offence hence such  complaint that had been filed leads to an abuse of the  process of the  court  resulting in the quashing of such proceedings.