Criminal case cannot be quashed merely because complaint was filed by political rival: Supreme Court

In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court has held that a criminal case cannot be quashed solely on the ground that the complaint was filed by a political rival [Ramveer Upadhyay vs State of U.P]..A bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and AS Bopanna, therefore, refused to quash an FIR lodged against Ramveer Upadhyay, a former legislator from Sadabad constituency in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, who was booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act) for hurling casteist abuses against a political rival's employee."In our considered opinion criminal proceedings cannot be nipped in the bud by exercise of jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. only because the complaint has been lodged by a political rival. It is possible that a false complaint may have been lodged at the behest of a political opponent. However, such possibility would not justify interference under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. to quash the criminal proceedings," the Court said. .The Court was seized of a plea filed by Upadhyay seeking to quash the criminal proceedings and also the summons issued against him by a special court in September 2021 on a plaint filed by an employee of Devendra Aggarwal, a former legislator from Sadabad.According to the complaint, Upadhyay had hurled casteist abuses to the complainant, who belonged to the 'Dhobi' community, a scheduled caste. It was alleged that during the assembly polls in 2017, there was a rift between Aggarwal and Upadhyay since both were political rivals.In a rally of Upadhyay's son in February 2017, Aggarwal had allegedly opened fire and one of the supporters from the opposite side was killed. Since Aggarwal was the sitting legislator, the police didn't take any action against him and thus Upadhyay along with the supporter's family, petitioned the Allahabad High Court seeking directive to the police authorities to take action. Meanwhile, Aggarwal's employee approached a special court with a complaint against Upadhyay. He claimed in his plaint that in October 2017, the accused along with other unknown persons had abused him by using his caste and had threatened to kill him. He even claimed that Upadhyay had asked his men to drag him to his car but due to the presence of the rival group members, they couldn't drag him.In his defence, Upadhyay claimed that the case was borne out of political vendetta and the criminal complaint under the Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was lodged against him at the behest of Aggarwal.Upadhyay challenged the summons in the Allahabad High Court and urged the court to quash the proceedings but his plea was dismissed in March 2022.He then moved the apex court in appeal. .The judges after considering the material on record, noted that a similar complaint was lodged against Upadhyay by the complainant's wife in 2010 accusing him of allegedly kidnapping her husband and forcing him to cast vote in his favor.The bench further noted that in that case, the complainant had moved even till the Supreme Court seeking action against Upadhyay and held that the actions of the petitioner could be a retaliation to the earlier case. "The possibility of retaliation on the part of the petitioners by the acts alleged, after closure of the earlier criminal case cannot be ruled out. The allegations in the complaint constitute offence under the Atrocities Act. Whether the allegations are true or untrue, would have to be decided in the trial. In exercise of power under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C., the Court does not examine the correctness of the allegations in a complaint except in exceptionally rare cases where it is patently clear that the allegations are frivolous or do not disclose any offence. The instant complaint is not such a case which should be quashed at the inception itself without further trial. The allegations in the complaint, if established, could result in conviction under the relevant sub-sections of Section 3(1) of the Atrocities Act," the bench held. The Supreme Court, therefore, concluded that the High Court rightly dismissed the application under Section 482 of the CrPC.The judges also cited the observations of former Chief Justice of India P N Bhagwati, who in the judgment rendered in Sheonandan Paswan vs State of Bihar had held that a complaint may have been initiated by reason of political vendetta but that in itself cannot be a ground for quashing the criminal proceedings."It is a well established proposition of law that a criminal prosecution, if otherwise justified and based upon adequate evidence, does not become vitiated on account of mala fides or political vendetta of the first informant or complainant," the apex court concluded..[Read Judgment]