Patna High Court: Ashwani Kumar Singh, J. dismissed an application for the quashing of FIR by the petitioner under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India.
An FIR was registered under Section 366 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code, 1860 against the petitioner where it was alleged that he took the daughter of one Ram Narayan Pandey, who was aged about 18 years, when she was going to the Durga Mandir with her mother on 18-04-2019 at about 5.30 p.m. to offer her prayers. The petitioner along with others came there on a Bolero jeep and assaulted his daughter. When his wife protested, the accused pushed aside the informant’s wife and put his daughter in the vehicle and sped away.
The counsel for the petitioner Shubhesh Pandey submitted that the allegations made in the FIR were false and that the alleged victim had attained the age of majority, who out of her own sweet will, went with the petitioner and voluntarily married him.
After a careful perusal of the records, the Court held that the allegations made in the FIR were quite serious and they attracted the ingredients of a cognizable offence. To hold an investigation into a cognizable offence is the statutory right of the police. The defense taken by the petitioner that the victim went together with him out of her own sweet will and married him was to be examined by the police in the course of the investigation. At the stage of the investigation, the court would not come to any conclusion regarding the veracity of allegations made in the FIR. It is a well-settled principle of law that at this stage, the Court has no role to play. The role of the Court would start only after the investigation is completed and a report under Section 173(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure is filed.
In view of the above-noted facts, the instant application was dismissed since the allegations made in the FIR attracted the ingredients of a cognizable offence, and there was no reason to quash the FIR.[Benkatesh Kumar v. State of Bihar, 2019 SCC OnLine Pat 1355, decided on 22-07-2019]
