TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2018 (1) TMI 1624
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....la, Adv., Mr. Sunil Kaundal, Adv., Mr. Gaichangpou Gangmei, AOR, Mr. Mohit Paul, AOR, Mr. Puneeth K.G., Adv., Mr. Anugrah Niraj Ekka, Adv., Mr. E. C. Agrawala, AOR For the Respondent : Mr. Harin P. Raval, Sr. Adv., Mr. Pradhuman Gohil, Adv., Mrs. Taruna Singh Gohil, AOR, Mr. Himanshu Chaubey, Adv., Mrs. Hemantika Wahi, AOR, Ms. Jesal Wahi, Adv., Ms. Puja Singh, Adv., Ms. Mamta singh, Adv., Ms. Shodhika Sharma, Adv. JUDGMENT Abhay Manohar Sapre, J. 1. Leave granted. 2. These appeals are filed against the common final judgment and order dated 10.07.2017 passed by the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad in Criminal Misc. Application (for quashing and set aside FIR/Order) No. 16731 of 2016 with Crl. Misc. Appln. Nos. 13733, 14842/2016, SPCRA Nos. 4387, 4357, 4951/2016, Crl. Misc. Appln. No. 32440/2016 in Crl. Misc. Appln. No. 16731/2016 whereby the Single Judge of the High Court partly allowed the application for quashing the FIR. 3. In order to appreciate the issues involved in this bunch of appeals, it is necessary to state few relevant facts. The facts are taken from the SLP paper books. 4. The dispute arising between the parties to this bunch of appeals essentially relates to....
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.... 7 and 11 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The complaint also set out the allegations with details alike the previous one with some new facts. 10. Yet another third complaint was filed with the Collector, District Disputes Redressal Forum, Surat (Annexure-P-13) on 07.10.2013 by one of the complainants against 8 named persons making more or less same allegations made in the first two complaints with more detailed facts seeking to prosecute them for the commission of offences named in the earlier complaints. 11. It is these three complaints which led to registration of the FIR (CR No. I.C.R. No. 90 of 2016) on 06.06.2016 with Khatodara Police Station, Surat giving rise to filing of several criminal applications, bail petitions etc. one after the other at the instances of the named Accused persons and Ors. alleged to be involved in the cases. 12. These cases were filed in the lower Court, the High Court and also in this Court one after the other during the last 4 years. The Courts passed several orders with observations made therein. 13. The present bunch of appeals arises out of the criminal applications filed by the named Accused....
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....Ms. Meenakshi Arora and Mr. Shamik Sanjanwala, learned senior Counsel for the Accused persons and Mr. Dushyant Dave and Mr. Harin P. Raval, learned senior Counsel for the complainants. 20. Mr. Mukul Rohatgi, Dr. A.M. Singhvi, Mr. Yatin Oza and Ms. Meenakshi Arora, learned senior Counsel appearing for the Accused persons, in their respective appeals, strenuously contended that the High Court had rightly quashed the FIR in part but erred in not proceeding to quash the FIR in full because in the light of the findings on which the FIR was quashed in part, nothing then remained for the investigating authorities to probe in the remaining FIR which was upheld. 21. It is this submission, which was elaborated by all the Senior Counsel by placing reliance on several documents, observations of the High Court made in the earlier round of litigation and in the impugned judgment with a view to show that the entire FIR is an abuse of legal process and caused harassment to the Accused persons. It was urged that FIR does not make out any much less prima facie case against any of the Accused persons as the parties having settled the matter in writing and the complainants having accepted the huge c....
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....ular case. If on a consideration of the relevant materials, the Court is satisfied that an offence is disclosed, the Court will normally not interfere with the investigation into the offence and will generally allow the investigation in the offence to be completed for collecting materials for proving the offence. The condition precedent to the commencement of investigation Under Section 157 of the Code is that the F.I.R. must disclose, prima facie, that a cognizable offence has been committed. It is wrong to suppose that the police have an unfettered discretion to commence investigation Under Section 157 of the Code. Their right of inquiry is conditioned by the existence of reason to suspect the commission of a cognizable offence and they cannot, reasonably, have reason so to suspect unless the F.I.R., prima facie, discloses the commission of such offence. If that condition is satisfied, the investigation must go on. The Court has then no power to stop the investigation, for to do so would be to trench upon the lawful power of the police to investigate into cognizable offences. 28. Keeping in view the aforesaid principle of law, which was consistently followed by this Cour....
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....he case and devoted 89 pages judgment to quash the FIR in part lead us to draw a conclusion that the High Court had exceeded its powers while exercising its inherent jurisdiction Under Section 482 of the Code. We cannot concur with such approach of the High Court. 34. The inherent powers of the High Court, which are obviously not defined being inherent in its very nature, cannot be stretched to any extent and nor can such powers be equated with the appellate powers of the High Court defined in the Code. The parameters laid down by this Court while exercising inherent powers must always be kept in mind else it would lead to committing the jurisdictional error in deciding the case. Such is the case here. 35. On perusal of the three complaints and the FIR mentioned above, we are of the considered view that the complaint and FIR, do disclose a prima facie commission of various cognizable offences alleged by the complainants against the Accused persons and, therefore, the High Court instead of dismissing the application filed by the Accused persons in part should have dismissed the application as a whole to uphold the entire FIR in question. 36. Learned Counsel for the Accused person....