Supreme Court slaps ₹5 lakh costs on father of Rajasthan cop for misusing State machinery

The Supreme Court on Friday imposed ₹5 lakhs as costs on the father of a lady police officer from Rajasthan on finding that they had misused State machinery to file a marital cruelty case twice against the officer's estranged husband [Parteek Bansal vs State of Rajasthan and ors]..A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Prashant Kumar Mishra also criticised the Rajasthan High Court and the State Police for allowing multiple criminal complaints to proceed in the matter. "The impugned proceedings are nothing but an abuse of the process of law ... respondent Nos. 2 and 3 (the complainant-father and his daughter who is a police officer) had been misusing their official position by lodging complaints one after the other ... We thus deprecate this practice of state machinery being misused for ulterior motives and for causing harassment to the other side," the Supreme Court said. .The Court was hearing an appeal filed challenging a Rajasthan High Court's refusal to quash the case filed by the Rajasthan police against a man under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (cruelty to a married woman).The accused man claimed that two criminal cases had been lodged against him on the same set of allegations in two districts, Udaipur (Rajasthan) and Hisar (Haryana). The complainant was the father of a police officer who had married the accused man (appellant) in 2015. Months later, a criminal case alleging marital cruelty was filed in Haryana against the appellant. A first information report (FIR) was registered in the matter on October 17, 2015, following the October 10 complaint. However, except for the appellant, no one appeared during the trial of the case in Haryana or pursued the case further over there. Meanwhile, a complaint was also lodged in Udaipur against the appellant citing similar allegations. This complaint was filed on October 15, 2015, and an FIR was registered on November 1, 2015. .The appellant then filed a plea to quash the case registered in Udaipur. However, a trial court and the Rajasthan High Court rejected his plea, prompting him to move the Supreme Court for relief. In 2017, the Supreme Court stayed all criminal proceedings in the Udaipur case while dealing with the accused man's appeal. In the meantime, the Haryana trial court acquitted him in the Hisar case. .On Friday (April 19), the Supreme Court noted that the Haryana trial court had no option but to acquit the appellant since neither the alleged victim (police officer) nor the complainant (victim's father) appeared before the trial court at all. The top court also pointed out that the complainant and his daughter did not take any measures to withdraw or transfer the Hisar complaint if it were their case that the Hisar police did not have jurisdiction over the matter. The Supreme Court proceeded to criticise the conduct of the complainant and his daughter, observing that they had wasted the valuable time of both the Hisar police and the Haryana trial court. "Neither the complainant nor the victim entered the witness box before the Hisar Court allowing total wastage of the valuable time of the Court and the investigating agency. Merely because she was a Police Officer, she first managed to get an FIR lodged at Hisar through her father, and thereafter she moved to her hometown at Udaipur and got another complaint lodged by her father within a week," the Supreme Court said..The Supreme Court further took exception to the conduct of the Rajasthan Police and the High Court in allowing the proceedings to continue. "The investigating agency at Udaipur was well aware of the complaint on similar allegations being lodged at Hisar. The High Court again fell in error in observing that the Rajasthan Police was not aware about the earlier proceedings initiated at Hisar. The High Court and the Rajasthan Police were expected to at least read the complaint carefully," the top court said. .The accused man's appeal was, thus, allowed and the criminal case registered at Udaipur was quashed..The Court further directed the complainant (father of the police officer) to pay half of the ₹5 lakh costs imposed on him to the appellant. The remaining amount is to be given to the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee..Supreme Court imposes ₹25 lakh costs on litigant for initiating criminal proceedings in civil dispute.Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora with advocates Rishi Malhotra, Jaydip Pati, and Utkarsh Singh appeared for the appellant, one Parteek Bansal.Senior advocate Manish Singhvi with advocates Shubhangi Agarwal, Apurv Singhvi, Anuj Gupta, Shailesh Joshi, and DK Devesh appeared for the State of Rajasthan.Senior advocate Uday Gupta with advocates Shivani Lal, Gaurav Dave, MK Tripathi, Sanam Singh, Harish Dasan, Rajiv Ranjan, Rajeev Kumar Gupta, Yogamaya MG, and Hiren Dasan appeared for the original complainant..[Read Judgment]