ANALYSIS, REASONING AND CONCLUSION
FACTS
24. Having considered the matter, this Court finds that a case for interference is made out. The basic facts to be noticed are: (a) that the land-owners with whom GMID had entered into the JDA, had purchased the land in 1954-1955, and; (b) the occupancy rights were also created in the original land-owners’ favour on 09.07.1961. From then onwards, no dispute was raised by any person before any authority and only after the GMID entered into the JDA with the original land-owners in the year 2009, obtained all clearances from the authorities in their favour, started the construction work and built apartments numbering more than 400, sold them to the buyers/allottees in the year 2017, did the present dispute arise. This itself indicates a lack of bonafide. We have mused as to why the complainant and her family members, if the land was theirs, would sit by and watch on as fence-sitters for a long period of time.
FIR IS FILED WHEN CIVIL LITIGATION FAILED
25. Moreover, when one civil litigation had attained finality with no relief granted to the relatives of the complainant, another civil suit was filed in the year 2016 and therein as well, when no interim order could be secured by the complainant/her family members, the present complaint has been registered, resulting in the FIR. We are constrained to state that the malafide appears writ large from the aforenoted sequence of events.
26. Although we are not for verbosity in our judgments, a slightly detailed survey of the judicial precedents is in order. Hon’ble Supreme Court has quoted the following judgments:
1. State of Haryana v Bhajan Lal, 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335 (para. 102)
2. S W Palanitkar v State of Bihar, (2002) 1 SCC 24
3. State of Karnataka v M Devendrappa, (2002) 3 SCC 89 (para. 6)
4. Uma Shankar Gopalika v State of Bihar, (2005) 10 SCC 336 (para. 7)
5. Parbatbhai Aahir v State of Gujarat, (2017) 9 SCC 641 and Habib Abdullah Jeelani, (2017) 2 SCC 779
6. Vinod Natesan v State of Kerala, (2019) 2 SCC 401 (para. 11)
7. Kamal Shivaji Pokarnekar v State of Maharashtra, (2019) 14 SCC 350 and Mahendra K C v State of
Karnataka, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 1021 (para. 23)
8. Arnab Manoranjan Goswami v State of Maharashtra, (2021) 2 SCC 427 (para. 68)
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34. Insofar and inasmuch as interference in cases involving the SC/ST Act is concerned, we may only point out that a 3-Judge Bench of this Court, in Ramawatar v State of Madhya Pradesh, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 966, has held that the mere fact that the offence is covered under a ‘special statute’ would not inhibit this Court or the High Court from exercising their respective powers under Article 142 of the Constitution or Section 482 of the Code.
FIR NEED NOT BE A DETAILED ONE
35. We have bestowed anxious consideration to the precedents cited by learned counsel for the respondents and are of the view that the same are inapposite to the factual scenario herein. Suffice it would be to state that while the propositions laid down therein are not disputed, they do not prejudice the version of the present appellant. Tapan Kumar Singh (supra) and Naresh (supra) indicate that the FIR need not be a detailed one, as it is only to initiate the investigative process and the police should ordinarily be allowed to investigate. This is the general rule, but not a fetter on this Court or the High Court in an appropriate case.
CIVIL MATTER GIVEN CRIMINAL COLOUR IS ABUSE OF PROCESS OF COURT
36. What is evincible from the extant case-law is that this Court has been consistent in interfering in such matters where purely civil disputes, more often than not, relating to land and/or money are given the colour of criminality, only for the purposes of exerting extra-judicial pressure on the party concerned, which, we reiterate, is nothing but abuse of the process of the court. In the present case, there is a huge, and quite frankly, unexplained delay of over 60 years in initiating dispute with regard to the ownership of the land in question, and the criminal case has been lodged only after failure to obtain relief in the civil suits, coupled with denial of relief in the interim therein to the respondent no.2/her family members. It is evident that resort was now being had to criminal proceedings which, in the considered opinion of this Court, is with ulterior motives, for oblique reasons and is a clear case of vengeance.
37. The Court would also note that even if the allegations are taken to be true on their face value, it is not discernible that any offence can be said to have been made out under the SC/ST Act against the appellant. The complaint and FIR are frivolous, vexatious and oppressive.
OFFICERS INVESTIGATING THE OFFENCE ARE DUTY BOUND TO BE VIGILANT BEFORE INVOKING ANY PROVISION OF A VERY STRINGENT STATUTE, LIKE THE SC/ST ACT
38. This Court would indicate that the officers, who institute an FIR, based on any complaint, are duty- bound to be vigilant before invoking any provision of a very stringent statute, like the SC/ST Act, which imposes serious penal consequences on the concerned accused. The officer has to be satisfied that the provisions he seeks to invoke prima facie apply to the case at hand. We clarify that our remarks, in no manner, are to dilute the applicability of special/stringent statutes, but only to remind the police not to mechanically apply the law, dehors reference to the factual position.
FIR and other related procedures are quashed.
PARTY: SRI GULAM MUSTAFA vs. THE STATE OF KARNATAKA & ANR; R1: THE STATE OF KARNATAKA R2: SMT. JAYAMMA – CRIMINAL APPEAL No. 1452 OF 2023 (@ SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CRL.) NO.2480 OF 2021) – MAY 10, 2023.
https://main.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2021/6757/6757_2021_3_1501_44364_Judgement_10-May-2023.pdf
