Supreme Court upholds Rajasthan High Court order quashing FIR registered in Arunachal Pradesh

The Supreme Court recently upheld the Rajasthan High Court's decision to quash a criminal case registered in Arunachal Pradesh [State of Arunachal Pradesh vs Kamal Agarwal and ors etc]..A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and KV Viswanathan concluded that the High Court had rightly found that no cause of action arose in Arunachal Pradesh.Moreover, the Bench noted that the allegations appeared to constitute a civil (and not a criminal) dispute and that no criminal case ought to have been registered in the matter in the first place. "The High Court of Rajasthan had rightly found as a matter of fact ... that the offence, if any, although according to us, no offence is made out, would be within the territorial jurisdiction of Rajasthan and not Arunachal Pradesh. The State of Arunachal Pradesh ought to have been happy getting rid of an unnecessary Criminal Case being registered and tried in Arunachal Pradesh," the Supreme Court said. .The Bench further expressed surprise over the Arunachal government's decision to challenge the Rajasthan High Court order, when even the original complainant had not challenged the closure of the case by the High Court. "Why the State of Arunachal Pradesh has approached this Court is also a question to be answered by the said State when the complainant in a matter relating to civil/commercial dispute is not coming forward to defend its FIR which has been quashed by the Rajasthan High Court," the top court's April 18 judgment stated. .Police have no authority to recover money; difference between civil and criminal wrongs being ignored: Supreme Court.The case in question concerned allegations that the accused had failed to hand over certain property, despite the payment of money by the complainant to purchase the said property. The property was located in Rajasthan and the accused men were also residents of Rajasthan. However, the complainant lodged a criminal case citing Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Arunachal Pradesh. Notably, the address given by the complainant for himself was the address of a company in Arunachal Pradesh. .The accused men later filed petitions before the Rajasthan High Court as well as the Gauhati High Court to quash the criminal case. The Rajasthan High Court quashed the case and proceedings, while the Gauhati High Court refused to grant any such relief..The Arunachal Pradesh government then filed three appeals before the Supreme Court, challenging the Rajasthan High Court's decision to quash the criminal case. Meanwhile, the accused filed appeals challenging the Gauhati High Court decision. .The Supreme Court agreed with the Rajasthan High Court's finding that no part of the alleged offence had arisen in Arunachal Pradesh and dismissed these appeals. It proceeded to uphold the decision to quash the case altogether after noting that the allegations would not constitute a criminal offence. "Normally, in a given case where issue is of territorial jurisdiction we could have directed to transfer the investigation or the trial to the State where the cause of action would lie but in the present case, we find that no (criminal) offence as such is made out," the top court said while affirming the Rajasthan High Court's decision to quash the criminal case. .Supreme Court imposes ₹25 lakh costs on litigant for initiating criminal proceedings in civil dispute.The appeals filed by the accused against the Gauhati High Court's decision were, thus, allowed while the appeals filed by the Arunachal Pradesh government against the Rajasthan High Court's decision were dismissed..Senior Advocates Siddhartha Dave and Liz Mathew with advocates Navneet R, Prastut Dalvi, Mallika Agarwal, and Mohit Khandelwal appeared for those accused who initially moved the Gauhati High Court.Advocates Anuj Bhandari, Rajat Gupta, and Yuvraj Singh Rajawat appeared for the accused who had earlier moved the Rajasthan High Court..[Read judgment]