No Wrongful Dispossession; Land Covered By Sale Deed In Favour Of Accused: Supreme Court Quashes FIR Under SC-ST Act

The appellants approached the Apex Court challenging an order refusing to quash the proceedings.

The Division Bench of Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Justice K. Vinod Chandran held, “As of now the land is covered by a sale deed in favour of the first appellant. There can be no question of an offence being charged under Section 2 (3)(g) of the Act of 1989, of wrongful dispossession of a member of a Scheduled Caste/Schedule Tribe from their land. Likewise, there is no offence as coming out under Section 3(1)(s) of the Act of 1989 since there is no allegation that the casteist slur was made in a place within public view or that there was any member of the public present at the spot. In any event, the allegations in the FIS itself are found to be unbelievable going by the clear averments made in the suit filed on the very same day. ”

“We are inclined to find that in the totality of the circumstances as noticed above, the FIR based on the FIS is a clear abuse of process of law. From the records of the suit as has been filed by the first informant, the allegations in the FIS does not come out”, it added.

Senior Advocate Shoeb Alam represented the Appellant while Advocate P.S. Sudheer represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The appellants arrayed as accused in a criminal case had approached the High Court for quashing of the FIR. It was the appellants’ case that the first appellant had purchased a property from the vendee of the other appellants in the year 2020 and was in possession of the same. It was one Pankaj Singh who instigated the informant to lodge the FIR and file a civil case against the appellants, since the first appellant failed to succumb to an attempt to extort an amount of Rs 10 lakh from him. The very same complainant had filed a case against another person also at the instigation of the said Pankaj Singh.

The High Court, by the impugned judgment, refused to quash the FIR, finding that there was a direct and specific allegation against the appellants of having criminally conspired to interfere with the possession of the subject land owned by the informant, which they attempted by fabricating documents. As per the Court, the informant being a member of a scheduled caste was abused using the caste name and together these constituted offences punishable under Sections 3(1)(g) and (s) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The appellants’ contention that there was only a civil dispute between the parties, pending in a civil court, was found to be not sufficient to quash the criminal proceedings.

Reasoning

The Bench noted that the first appellant purchased the land from the vendee, and he also raised a complaint against one Pankaj Singh for attempting extortion of money and for levelling threats against the life of the first appellant. In 2022, simultaneously, a suit was filed by the second respondent, and an FIR was lodged, claiming that the appellants had created forged documents to sell the same to the first appellant, who had been illegally occupying the subject land. It was also claimed that the appellants/accused came to the subject land and forcefully started building a boundary wall. There was also a further allegation that the appellants hurled abuses at the informant, specifically mentioning the caste name, which is a casteist slur.

The Bench found that the vendor of the first appellant is not the other appellants and is a third party who was not impleaded either in the suit or arrayed as an accused in the criminal case lodged. “Further, when there is no allegation of dispossession of land as such in the FIS, in the suit filed on the very same day, one of the reliefs sought is for recovery of possession. The sale deed of the first appellant is in the year 2020 and the other appellants obtained the property in the year 2014. There is no relief claimed in the suit to set aside the above sale deeds”, it added.

The Bench was of the view that the FIR based on the FIS was a clear abuse of the process of law. From the records of the suit as filed by the first informant, the allegations in the FIS did not come out. As per the Bench, the High Court ought to have quashed the FIR. “Having not done so we set aside the order of the High Court and quash FIR No.18 of 2020 registered in Police Station Kanke, Ranchi and direct that no further proceedings shall be taken by the police against the arrayed accused in pursuance of the said FIR”, the Bench ordered while allowing the appeal.

Cause Title: Amal Kumar & Ors. v. The State of Jharkhand & Anr. (Neutral Citation:2025 INSC 1402)

Appearance

Appellant: Senior Advocate Shoeb Alam, AOR Rohit K. Singh, Advocates Pritam Bishwas, Yashveer Singh, Shivansh Pundir, Kartikey Bansal

Respondent: Advocate P. S. Sudheer, AOR Tulika Mukherjee, Advocates Beenu Sharma, Venkat Narayan, Abhishek Rai, Gyanant Singh, Pratap Shanker, Shilpi Shrivastava, Sarthak Shankar, AOR Swetank Shantanu

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