The Allahabad High Court has refused to quash the criminal proceedings against the applicant on the ground that at the stage of the chargesheet, the Court concerned has to examine only upon the documents collected during investigation by Police and the defence evidence would be examined during trial.

The Bench of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav said that “While considering prayer for quashing of charge sheet, this Court cannot examine any defence of accused which has yet to be placed before Court below. Stage of placing the defence version does not arise at the stage of charge sheet and, therefore, this Court will not examine alleged defence at this stage.”

Senior Advocate Satish Trivedi appeared for the applicant and GA Ashish Pandey appeared for the opposite party.

In this case, the applicant had preferred the application under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure, 1973 for quashing the FIR and the entire criminal proceedings. The applicant and the deceased (victim-daughter of the respondent) were in a relationship and were about to get married. But the applicant refused to marry the deceased just days before the wedding. The deceased consumed poison on being thrown out of the applicant’s house.

Based on the application filed by the respondent, FIR was registered under Sections 420, 376, 306, 406,120-B of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 of the Information and Technology Act, 2000 and Section 3/4 of the D.P. Act.

It was alleged by the applicant that the victim had been involved in various criminal cases and therefore, he refused to marry the victim.

The Court noted that whether accused instigated deceased to take poison or not could not be considered at this stage. The other relevant facts were that accused developed friendship with the deceased and he had relation with her for quite some time and thereafter the refusal might have caused serious depression or embarrassment to the victim.

“Whether it is a case of entering into relationship with deceased with or without consent or whether he played any active direct or indirect role which leads deceased to commit suicide cannot be looked into at this stage.” said the Court.

Accordingly, the Court refused to quash the criminal proceedings and the application was dismissed.

Cause Title- Kalika Pratap Singh v. State of U.P. and Another

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Allahabad High CourtJustice Shekhar Kumar YadavThe Information and Technology Act 2000

Sanjoli N Srivastava