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The Supreme Court quashed a rape case accepting joint request of the accused and the complainant who stated that they are happily married.
A bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari said: “Considering the nature of allegations in the FIR and the realisation of the fact that due to miscommunication, FIR came to be registered at the relevant point of time which issues/misunderstanding have now been fully resolved and the parties are happily married since October 11, 2014, the basis of the FIR does not survive.”
The FIR was lodged in September 2013 at Delhi’s Safdarjung Enclave police station for the alleged offences under various sections of the IPC, including 376 (rape).Later they resolved their differences and eventually got married on 11.10.2014. The Delhi High Court, before which, the accused moved a petition for quashing FIR, observed that settlement in cases where nature of offence is heinous/serious like murder, rape and dacoity, the criminal proceedings cannot be quashed even if there are settled by the accused and the victim, by invoking the jurisdiction of High Court under Section 482 CrPC.
"Rape not only causes serious injury to a woman's body, her honour and dignity and even if such an offence is settled by the offender and victim, this offence being not private in nature but has serious impact on the society and, therefore, cannot be quashed.", the High Court had observed.
“Taking overall view of the matter, therefore, in the interest of justice, we accede to the joint request of quashing of FIR in the peculiar facts of the present case,” it said.
The two parties told the court that the filing of the FIR was due to “some misunderstanding”.
“Rather registering such FIR was an ill-advised move on the part of the private respondent, is the stand now taken before us. It is seen that the appellant and private respondent are literate and well-informed persons and have jointly opted for quashing of the stated FIR,” said the top court.
The bench said these appeals must succeed. “The impugned judgment and order is set aside. Instead, the Writ Petition filed by the appellant for quashing is allowed, as a result of which, all steps taken on the basis of impugned FIR be treated as effaced from the record in law,” said the top court.
Case: Mr. A vs. State
Coram: Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari
Counsel: Sr. Adv. Siddhartha Dave, Advocates Nishaank Mattoo, Abhishek Bharti, Shivika Singh, AOR Balaji Srinivasan, Sr. Adv. Meenakshi Arora
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