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Offenses involved in the appeal could be categorized as purely personal and have no overtones of offense against the State and the nature of injuries was such as not to appear to exhibit any mental depravity for the commission of an offense of such a serious nature that its quashing would over-ride public interest. Such an observation was made by the Hon’ble Allahabad High Court before Hon’ble Justice Mrs. Sangeeta Chandra in the matter of Mata Bheekh Singh &ors vs  State Of U.P. & Anr [U/S 482/378/407 No. – 4035 of 2021] on  22.10.2021.

The fact of the case was that the parties had reached a compromise and wanted to settle the matter. The objection of the state was that at least six incised wounds on the face of the victim, and says that in such cases under Section 307 of the IPC, the inherent powers of quashing prosecution under Section 482 should not ordinarily be exercised. Whereas, it was the contention of the appellant that the incident happened a long time back in a heat of the moment under grave provocation and no such incident had taken place since.

The Hon’ble High Court observed  “No doubt, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has made such observations under Article 142 of the Constitution and has quashed a prosecution against the appellants not in the exercise of it’s the power of quashing under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. but under Article 142 which is designed to do complete justice between the parties. However, the observations made by the Hon’ble Supreme Court seem appropriate in this case also.”

Finally, the Hon’ble High Court allowed the appeal and directed the registry to forward the papers to the learned trial court, who shall verify the compromise occurring between the parties and pass appropriate orders thereon.

Click Here To Read The Judgment.

Judgment Reviewed by: Rohan Kumar Thakur