Dr. Jagdish Prasad vs The State Of Uttar Pradesh

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1542 OF 2018 (Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.) No. 9365 of 2018)

Dr. Jagdish Prasad & Ors. ….Appellant(s)

VERSUS

State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr. ….Respondent(s)

J U D G M E N T

Abhay Manohar Sapre, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. This appeal is filed against the final judgment

and order dated 13.09.2018 passed by the High

Court of Judicature at Allahabad in an Application

under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Signature Not Verified

Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as “the Digitally signed by ANITA MALHOTRA Date: 2018.12.03 17:00:38 IST Reason:

Code”) bearing No.35595 of 2017 whereby the

1 Single Judge dismissed the application filed by the

appellants herein.

3. Few facts need mention hereinbelow to

appreciate the short controversy involved in this

appeal.

4. By impugned order, the learned Single Judge

dismissed the appellants’ application filed under

Section 482 of the Code wherein the challenge was

to quash the order dated 21/09/2017 as well as

entire proceedings in Complaint Case No.2540 of

2017 (Mamta vs. Jagdish Prasad & Ors.) under

Sections 498­A and 323 of the Indian Penal Code,

1860 (hereinafter referred to as “IPC”) and Sections

3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 Police

Station Mahila Thana, District Hathras pending in

the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hathras,

U.P.

2

5. The short question, which arises for

consideration in this appeal, is whether the High

Court was justified in dismissing the appellants’

applications filed under Section 482 of the Code.

6. Heard Mr. Rakesh Taneja, learned counsel for

the appellants and Mr. Chandra Shekhar, learned

counsel for the respondents.

7. Having heard the learned counsel for the

parties and on perusal of the record of the case we

are inclined to set aside the impugned order and

remand the case to the High Court for deciding the

appellants’ application, out of which this appeal

arises, afresh on merits in accordance with law.

8. On perusal of the impugned order, we find that

the Single Judge has quoted the principles of law

laid down by this Court in several decisions relating

to powers of the High Court on the issue of

interference in cases filed under Section 482 of the

3 Code from Para 2 to the concluding para but has

not referred to the facts of the case to appreciate the

controversy of the case.

9. We are, therefore, unable to know the factual

matrix of the case after reading the impugned

judgment except the legal principles laid down by

this Court in several decisions.

10. In our view, the Single Judge ought to have

first set out the brief facts of the case with a view to

understand the factual matrix and then examined

the challenge made to the proceedings in the light of

the principles of law laid down by this Court with a

view to record the findings on the grounds urged by

the appellants as to whether any interference

therein is called for or not.

11. We find that the aforementioned exercise was

not done by the High Court while passing the

impugned order.

4

12. We, therefore, find ourselves unable to concur

with such disposal of the application by the High

Court and feel inclined to set aside the impugned

order and remand the case to the High Court (Single

Judge) with a request to decide the application

afresh on merits in accordance with law keeping in

view the aforementioned observations.

13. Having formed an opinion to remand the case

in the light of our reasoning mentioned above, we do

not consider it proper to go into the merits of the

case.

14. In view of the foregoing discussion, the appeal

succeeds and is accordingly allowed. Impugned

5 order is set aside. The case is remanded to the High

Court for its decision on merits uninfluenced by any

of our observations in this order.

………...................................J. [ABHAY MANOHAR SAPRE]

…...……..................................J. [INDU MALHOTRA] New Delhi;

December 03, 2018

6