Kerala High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of P. Somarajan, J. decided an application filed under Section 482 CrPC, wherein the Court quashed the criminal proceedings pending against the accused persons.
The accused persons were booked for offence under Sections 323, 324, 325, 506 (1), 509, 377, 354, 498 A, 294 (b) and 34 IPC. Accused No. 1 was the husband of the complainant while the other accused persons were her in-laws. The present application was filed to quash the proceedings going on against the accused persons in the criminal case registered for offences as mentioned hereinabove.
The High Court perused the record and found that in the final report it was clearly shown that the parties had arrived at a genuine settlement in mediation exercise as held between them. No bad antecedents were reported against the accused persons. Accused No. 1 and the complainant were living together as husband and wife. In the said circumstances, the Court held that stretching the criminal proceedings further would be a futile exercise and no purpose would be served. Therefore, the criminal proceedings pending against the accused persons under the criminal case referred to above, were quashed. [Dileep v. State of Kerala, 2018 SCC OnLine Ker 1457, order dated 27.4.2018]