Filing false affidavit amounts to Perjury; Uttarakhand HC imposes 2 lakh costs on Advocate

The Uttarakhand High Court yesterday held that swearing on a false affidavit would amount to perjury. In this light, it imposed costs of Rs 2 lakh on a practising advocate for filing false affidavits in his efforts to have criminal proceedings initiated against him quashed..Justice Lok Pal Singh passed the order, noting,.“Now-a-days many a litigants are not afraid in making false statements on oath to mislead the Court and even to commit perjury with the Court. .If such acts of litigants committing fraud upon the Court and making false statements on oath to mislead the Court just to obtain a favourable order is permitted to continue unabated it will certainly ruin the sanctity of the courts. Thus, such a litigant should be tackled with strong hands.”.By way of background, certain adverse comments were posted on Facebook against Geeta Ram Nautiyal, Secretary of the Uttarakhand Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Commission. In his Facebook comments, Advocate Chandra Shekhar Kargeti accused Nautiyal of being a corrupt officer..This prompted Nautiyal to lodge a complaint in 2016 under provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (SC/ST Act) and the Information Technology (IT) Act. A special judge under the SC/ST Act took cognizance of the complaint and summoned Kargeti in 2017..Kargeti therefore preferred an application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to quash these criminal proceedings. In the affidavit filed in support of this application, Kargeti also submitted that Nautiyal was a Brahmin and therefore, no case should lie under the SC/ST Act. In particular, the following extract of Kargeti’s petition drew the Court’s attention,.“That it is most important to point out here that Nautiyal’s happened to be high class Brahmins of Garhwal Region and filing of a First Information Report by a Brahmin alleging himself a Schedule Tribe and seeking recourse of Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act is a classic example of abuse of process of the court for settling his personal grudges.”.Following this application, a single judge passed an interim order directing that no coercive action be taken against Kargeti while this application was pending before the High Court..A Special Leave Petition filed against the said order by Nautiyal was also dismissed by the Supreme Court, with a direction that the case should be disposed of expeditiously..However, when Justice Lok Pal Singh took up the case, he found that these favourable court orders were obtained on the strength of false claims made by the Kargeti that Nautiyal was not part of a Scheduled Tribe..To counter Kargeti’s claims, Nautiyal had produced a caste certificate issued in 1988, recognising him as a member of the Jaunsari Scheduled Tribe community..On the other hand, Kargeti did not file any evidence to back his claims. In view of the same, Justice Singh concluded that Kargeti’s submissions were fraudulent and constituted the offence of perjury..“… it is abundantly clear that said averment has been made just to mislead and to commit fraud upon the Court and to obtain a favourable order in his favour, which amounts to perjury and fraud upon the Court.”.In this background, the Court emphasised that it cannot take a light view of litigants making such false claims, more so in the interest of preserving the sanctity of affidavits filed before the Court..“Justice dispensation system would be adversely affected if restrictions are not imposed upon the litigants, who attempt to mislead the court by filing and relying upon the false evidence particularly in cases, the adjudication of which is dependent upon the statement of facts….…Sanctity of the affidavits has to be preserved and protected discouraging the filing of irresponsible statements on oath.”.The fact that the perjurer was a practising advocate only added to the gravity of the issue..“… this Court is of the opinion that a heavy cost should be imposed upon the applicant. The applicant is not a layman, rather he is an Advocate, he should be more vigilant and cautious while making a statement on oath in the form of affidavit before the Court, but he made a bald and false statement on oath before this Court.”.Whereas Section 193 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) also provides for the imprisonment of perjurers, the Court stopped short of invoking the said provision..Instead, the Court deemed it appropriate that costs of Rs 2 lakh be imposed on Kargeti for his wrongdoing..Read the order: