SHLOK BHARDWAJ VERSUS RUNIKA BHARDWAJ & ORS : Supreme Court – Sections 498-A, 406, 506 of IPC and 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act
Supreme Court of India
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.741 OF 2009 Judgment Date: Dec 10, 2014
REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.741 OF 2009
SHLOK BHARDWAJ ...APPELLANT
VERSUS
RUNIKA BHARDWAJ & ORS. ...RESPONDENTS
J U D G M E N T
ADARSH KUMAR GOEL, J.
1. This appeal has been preferred against the Judgment and Order dated
21st November, 2006 passed by the High Court of Allahabad in Criminal
Revision Case No.1159 of 2002.
2. By the impugned order, the High Court has allowed the revision
petition filed by the Respondent, set aside the order dated 30th July, 2002
passed by Judicial Magistrate, Ghaziabad, in Case No.356 of 2002 and
remanded the matter back to the trial Court for fresh decision in
accordance with law.
3. We have heard learned counsel for the parties.
4. The question raised for our consideration is whether in exercise of
revisional jurisdiction, the High Court was justified in setting aside the
acquittal of the appellant, having regard to the facts and circumstances of
the case.
5. The appellant and Respondent No.1 were married on 25th January, 1996.
The appellant belongs to Allahabad where his parents live and the
respondent belonged to Jabalpur where her parents are living. The
appellant is said to be employed at Delhi in Central Government. The
appellant-husband filed a divorce petition on 7th July, 1997 at Allahabad
Family Court. The wife lodged First Information Report dated 4th November,
1997 at Ghaziabad making allegations of cruelty against the husband. After
investigation, the husband and four of his family members were tried under
Sections 498-A, 406, 506 IPC and 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act before
the Judicial Magistrate, Ghaziabad, in Case No.356/2002. The trial ended
in acquittal of all the accused including the appellant vide Order dated
30th July, 2002.
6. The divorce petition filed by the husband was ordered to be
transferred to Jabalpur at the instance of the wife. The wife also filed a
divorce petition at Jabalpur. The husband filed Transfer Petition (Civil)
No.150 of 2004 before this Court which was disposed of on 11th March, 2005.
This Court noted that since both the parties had sought divorce, the
marriage had broken down and the parties had agreed to a decree of divorce
by mutual consent. Accordingly, this Court directed the Family Court,
Jabalpur, to take up the matter on 4th April, 2005 without entertaining any
prayer for adjournment and pass a decree of divorce. Accordingly, the
Family Court, Jabalpur passed the decree of divorce on 4th April, 2005
after recording the statement of the parties that they mutually agreed to
decree of divorce. The wife did not press her counter claim for
maintenance. She also did not reserve liberty for any other action against
the husband.
7. It may be mentioned that against the Order of the Magistrate
acquitting the appellant and his family members, the Respondent-wife had
preferred Criminal Revision No.1159 of 2002 before the Allahabad High
Court. The husband filed affidavit dated 4th September, 2006 placing on
record the order of this Court and the order of the Family Court, Jabalpur
and also mentioning that after the dissolution of marriage, the wife has re-
married and in view of the order of this Court and the Family Court, the
revision petition ought to be dismissed.
8. The High Court, instead of dismissing the revision petition, without
referring to the above developments, allowed the revision petition by the
impugned order with the observation that documents Exhibit Ka2 and Ka3
showed harassment, cruelty and mental torture and the Magistrate had
skipped over the facts and wrongly acquitted the appellant. Aggrieved by
the said order, the appellant has approached this Court as already noticed
above.
9. The appellant appearing in person submitted that the parties had
taken divorce by mutual consent as per agreement reached before this Court
and thereafter, the respondent was not justified in proceeding against the
appellant. It was further submitted that the High Court failed to advert
to the settlement between the parties and also exceeded its jurisdiction in
setting aside the order of acquittal. The Magistrate in its detailed order
duly appreciated the entire evidence and found that no case for cruelty was
made out against the appellant. In exercise of revisional jurisdiction,
the said acquittal could not be set aside in absence of perversity.
Reliance has been placed on Judgment of this Court in Bindeshwari Prasad
Singh vs. State of Bihar[1] laying down as follows :
"12. We have carefully considered the material on record and we are
satisfied that the High Court was not justified in reappreciating the
evidence on record and coming to a different conclusion in a revision
preferred by the informant under Section 401 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure. Sub-section (3) of Section 401 in terms provides that nothing in
Section 401 shall be deemed to authorize a High Court to convert a finding
of acquittal into one of conviction. The aforesaid sub-section, which
places a limitation on the powers of the revisional court, prohibiting it
from converting a finding of acquittal into one of conviction, is itself
indicative of the nature and extent of the revisional power conferred by
Section 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. If the High Court could not
convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction directly, it could
not do so indirectly by the method of ordering a retrial. It is well
settled by a catena of decisions of this Court that the High [pic]Court
will ordinarily not interfere in revision with an order of acquittal except
in exceptional cases where the interest of public justice requires
interference for the correction of a manifest illegality or the prevention
of gross miscarriage of justice. The High Court will not be justified in
interfering with an order of acquittal merely because the trial court has
taken a wrong view of the law or has erred in appreciation of evidence. It
is neither possible nor advisable to make an exhaustive list of
circumstances in which exercise of revisional jurisdiction may be
justified, but decisions of this Court have laid down the parameters of
exercise of revisional jurisdiction by the High Court under Section 401
of the Code of Criminal Procedure in an appeal
against acquittal by a private party. (See D. Stephens v. Nosibolla [AIR
(1951) SC 196], K. Chinnaswamy Reddy
v. State of A.P. [AIR (1962) SC 1788] , Akalu Ahir v. Ramdeo Ram [(1973) 2
SCC 583], Pakalapati Narayana Gajapathi Raju v. Bonapalli Peda
Appadu[(1975) 4 SCC 477] and Mahendra Pratap Singh v. Sarju Singh
[AIR (1968) SC 707].)
10. Learned counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, submitted that
even though the parties had re-married after obtaining divorce by mutual
consent as noticed above, the wife was not debarred from pursuing the
criminal case against the appellant. He further submitted that the High
Court was justified in setting aside the order of the Magistrate and
remitting the matter back for a fresh decision.
11. We have given our anxious consideration to the rival submissions. We
are satisfied that the view taken by the High Court, in the facts and
circumstances of the case, is not just and fair and needs to be set aside.
12. It is clear from perusal of the impugned order of the High Court that
the development of settlement between the parties during pendency of the
revision petition has not even been adverted to. Once the matter was
settled between the parties and the said settlement was given effect to in
the form of divorce by mutual consent, no further dispute survived between
the parties, though it was not so expressly recorded in the order of this
Court. No liberty was reserved by the wife to continue further proceedings
against the husband. Thus, the wife was, after settling the matter,
estopped from continuing the proceedings. In any case, it is well settled
that the scope of revisional jurisdiction of the High Court does not extend
to re-appreciation of evidence. In exercise of revisional jurisdiction,
the High Court can interfere with the acquittal only if there is perversity
in the order of acquittal. In the present case, the order of acquittal
could not be held to be perverse. The High Court observed that the demand
of articles, papers of house property of Jabalpur and Noida and the
contents of Exhibits Ka2 and Ka3 amounted to harassment, cruelty and mental
torture. This observation amounted to substitution of its view by the High
Court for the view taken by the Magistrate after due consideration of all
the allegations. The Magistrate inter alia found the version of the
respondent-wife to be not believable and also found that the allegations
were not substantiated. It was observed that the wife herself admitted
that the documents Exhibit Ka2 and Ka3 were merely guidelines for good
conduct and behavior expected of her and did not amount to cruelty. It was
also admitted that there was no demand of dowry at the time of marriage.
The Investigating Officer had never visited Jabalpur and the demand of
house at Jabalpur was not substantiated. It was further observed that
criminal case filed by the wife was a counter blast to the divorce case
filed by the husband. Version before the Court was improvement over the
original version in the First Information Report. She had given
contradictory statement about the place where her husband demanded the
house. Thus, the Magistrate having dealt with the matter threadbare, the
High Court, in exercise of revisional jurisdiction was not justified in
interfering with the order of acquittal particularly when the parties had
reached the settlement before this Court on the basis of which divorce by
mutual consent was granted by the Family Court, Jabalpur which fact was
placed on record of the High Court.
13. In view of the above, we allow this appeal, set aside the impugned
order passed by the High Court and restore the order of the Magistrate.
................................................................J.
(SUDHANSU JYOTI MUKHOPADHAYA)
...............................................................J.
(ADARSH KUMAR GOEL)
NEW DELHI
DECEMBER 10, 2014
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