Judicial intervention vital in weeding out vexatious proceedings: SC

New Delhi, The Supreme Court on Thursday said judicial intervention to weed out vexatious proceedings was crucial in protecting people from misery and quashed the criminal prosecution of two persons.

The bench quashed the prosecution initiated against the two appellants, who were also accused of assault to deter the public servant from discharge of his duty.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi said summoning an accused was a serious matter, affecting liberty and dignity of the individual.

"Judicial intervention under section 482 CrPC to weed out vexatious proceedings is of pivotal importance in order to protect individuals from untelling harassment and misery and to ensure unmerited prosecutions do not crowd overflowing dockets of criminal courts and yield space for deserving cases," the bench said.

Section 482 of the CrPC deals with inherent powers of the high court.

Faced with the agony of a lame prosecution, it was of little solace to a litigant to be told that inherent powers were shut out as he was entitled to approach the trial court and pray for discharge, the top court said.

The bench's verdict came on an appeal challenging the Allahabad High Court's July 2015 order refusing to quash a criminal case against some persons for allegedly obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions.

It noted one of the appellants was a project coordinator at an organisation which was fighting against human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children in Uttar Pradesh.

The top court said the incident happened in June 2014 when a team of officials and the appellants inspected a spot following allegations that bonded child labourers were engaged in a brick kiln at Varanasi.

The appellants claimed they had found children and labourers who were brought to the police station but the owner of the brick kiln intervened and took them away.

Later, a police complaint was lodged alleging that the appellants along with others forcibly put the labourers and the children in dumpers and took them away.

After a chargesheet was filed and cognisance was taken by a magistrate, the appellants approached the high court seeking quashing of the chargesheet.

The top court said the high court had not adverted either to the facts of the case or the contentions raised by the appellants.

The bench said the high court observed the appellants had a right to seek discharge before the trial court.

"However, prior to arriving at such finding it is the duty of the high court to ascertain whether the uncontroverted allegations in the FIR/chargesheet constitute an offence, or continuation of the proceeding suffers from a legal bar or is wholly vexatious and an abuse of process of law," it said.

The bench said uncontroverted allegations in the chargesheet did not disclose use of force or holding out threatening gestures giving rise to an apprehension of use of force towards public servant.

It referred to a report of the additional labour commissioner, Uttar Pradesh, to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights regarding the incident.

The bench said in the report, the additional commissioner had gone to the extent of alleging that the appellants had offered bribes to labourers to make false statements.

"Such insinuations are wholly unfounded and not borne out from the statements recorded during investigation," it said.

"This hostile stance of the department fortifies our conclusion that registration of the criminal case was a product of malice and personal vendetta against the appellants," the bench said while allowing the appeal.

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