Two police officials from Uttar Pradesh are fined ₹50,000 by the Supreme Court for having brought a civil matter before the criminal court. It also severely criticised the police for the misuse of legal provisions with its stern criticism of the police that tries to convert civil disputes in criminal cases and is against the time tested judicial precedents.
Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said in a bench that the court has been burdened with petitions seeking quashing of orders of FIR registration in disputes between private parties, notwithstanding repeated rulings of the judiciary that such acts are unjustified. The bench firmly refused to waive the fine on the erring officers and said filing a criminal case for civil wrongs is unacceptable.
The bench directed that ₹ 50,000, the penalty that had been imposed, was to be recovered directly from the two officials who had filed a false FIR. The case in question pertained to a dispute over a property between Rikhab Birani and Sadhna Birani, residents of Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur. So the FIR had been lodged, even as two local magistrates had rejected two separate applications by complainant Shilpi Gupta, who had sought criminal prosecution of the Biranis.
Chief Justice Khanna highlighted a pattern of such misuse, recalling a similar incident when he had remarked: ‘There was complete breakdown of rule of law in Uttar Pradesh in the case of such misuse.” Earlier, the CJI had also directed the Director General of Police to file an affidavit in that instance.
The ruling from the Supreme Court, the latest one, is a great reminder to the law enforcement agencies to keep to the law and not chase civil disputes that should have been settled in the court as criminal cases without having relevant legal grounds.
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