The Hindu : National : Court: accept compromise even in criminal cases

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 03, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Court: accept compromise even in criminal cases

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi: In disputes of a purely personal nature, courts should ordinarily accept the terms of compromise even in criminal proceedings and dispose of the matter, the Supreme Court has held.

For, keeping the matter alive with no possibility of a result in favour of the prosecution is a luxury which the courts, grossly overburdened as they were, could not afford and the time thus saved could be utilised in deciding more effective and meaningful litigation, said a Bench consisting of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and H.S. Bedi.

Writing the judgment, Justice Bedi said: “This is a common-sense approach to the matter based on ground realities and bereft of the technicalities of law.”

Proceedings quashed

In this case, a complaint was filed against an Amritsar businessman for an offence under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code including 406 (criminal breach of trust).

But during the pendency of the dispute, the parties agreed to a compromise and an application was filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court for quashing the complaint.

The High Court did not accept the compromise stating Section 406 of the IPC was not compoundable as the amount involved was more than Rs. 250.

Allowing the appeal against this judgment filed by Madan Mohan Abbot, cited as the accused in the first information report, the Bench said: “We notice from a reading of the FIR and other documents that the dispute was purely a personal one between two contesting parties and that it arose out of extensive business dealings between them and that there was no public policy involved in the nature of allegations made against the accused.”

No useful purpose would be served by continuing with the proceedings in the light of the compromise, it said and quashed all proceedings connected with the complaint.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National