1 2025:CGHC:13654 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR CRMP No. 691 of 2025 1 - Sanjeet Sharma Alias Sunny S/o Basant Tripathi Aged About 35 Years R/o Shikshk Colony, Near Gayatri School, Daganiya, Tahsil And District- Raipur ( C.G. ). 2 - Basant Tripathi S/o Late S.P. Tripathi Aged About 66 Years R/o Shikshk Colony, Near Gayatri School, Daganiya, Tahsil And District- Raipur ( C.G. ). 3 - Smt. Roshni Sharma W/o Basant Aged About 59 Years R/o Shikshk Colony, Near Gayatri School, Daganiya, Tahsil And District- Raipur ( C.G. ). 4 - Neelima Pandey W/o Mayank Pandey Aged About 30 Years Permanent R/o Krishna Vihar Colony, Mathura Bemetara, Distt- Bemetara ( C.G. ). ... Petitioner(s) versus 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through- Station House OfÏcer, Police Station D.D. Nagar, District- Raipur ( C.G.). 2 - Smt. Priya Sharma D/o Shri Mahendra Kumar Sharma, W/o Sanjeet Sharma Aged About 30 Years R/o Street No. 30, Near New Golden Public School, Professor Colony, Distt- Raipur ( C.G.). ----Respondent For Petitioners : Ms. Priyanka Rai, on behalf of Mr. Abhishek Thakur, Adv. For Respondent-State : Mr. Pranjal Shukla, P.L. For Respondent No. 2 : Mr. Virendra Verma, Advocate Hon’ble Shri Arvind Kumar Verma, Judge Order on Board 21.03.2025 2 1. The petitioners have filed this CRMP challenging the order dated 25.01.2025 (Annexure P/1) passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Kora, Raipur, whereby on the basis of compromise arrived between the parties, a joint application filed by the petitioner No. 1 and respondent No. 2 (husband and wife) under Section 320(2) and 320(8) of Cr.P.C., for permission to compound the offences under Section 498-A r/w 34 of IPC, has been rejected. 2. In compliance to the Court's order dated 24.02.2025, statements of the parties got recorded on 07.03.2025 before the Addl. Registrar (Judl.) with regard to genuineness of the compromise. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the parties have amicable resolved the matrimonial dispute and have also recorded their respective statements in view of Hon'ble Court's order dated 24.02.2025. He also submits that the High Court can quash offence under Section 498-A while exercising its power under Section 528 of BNSS 2023. 4. Learned State counsel submits the parties have indeed settled their matrimonial dispute, the State would have no objection to the quashing of FIR and all the subsequent proceedings arising therefrom. 5. The parties (petitioners and complainant/respondent No.2) recorded compromise their statements on 07.03.2025 reporting compromise between themselves. The execution of the compromise by way of recording statement is admitted by the parties. In view of the compromise entered into between the parties, the respondents have no objection to quash the entire proceedings in connection with Crime No. 192/2016 under Section 498-A/34 of IPC registered at Police Station D.D. Nagar, Raipur and to quash all the subsequent proceedings arising therefrom. 3 6. The Supreme Court in Gian Singh v. State of Punjab & Another reported in (2012) 10 SCC 303 has laid down the following principles : “61. The position that emerges from the above discussion can be summarised thus: the power of the 1 (2012) 10 SCC 303 High Court in quashing a criminal proceeding or FIR or complaint in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction is distinct and different from the power given to a criminal court for compounding the offences under Section 320 of the Code. Inherent power is of wide plenitude with no statutory limitation but it has to be exercised in accord with the guideline engrafted in such power viz; (i) to secure the ends of justice or (ii) to prevent abuse of the process of any Court. In what cases power to quash the criminal proceeding or complaint or F.I.R may be exercised where the offender and victim have settled their dispute would depend on the facts and circumstances of each case and no category can be prescribed. However, before exercise of such power, the High Court must have due regard to the nature and gravity of the crime. Heinous and serious offences of mental depravity or offences like murder, rape, dacoity, etc. cannot be fittingly quashed even though the victim or victim’s family and the offender have settled the dispute. Such offences are not private in nature and have serious impact on society. Similarly, any compromise between the victim and offender in relation to the offences under special statutes like Prevention of Corruption Act or the offences committed by public servants while working in that capacity etc; cannot provide for any basis for quashing criminal proceedings involving such offences. But the criminal cases having overwhelmingly and pre-dominatingly civil flavour stand on different footing for the purposes of quashing, particularly the offences arising from commercial, financial, mercantile, civil, partnership or such like transactions or the offences arising out of matrimony relating to dowry, etc. or the family disputes where the wrong is basically private or personal in nature and the parties have resolved their entire dispute. In this category of cases, High Court may quash criminal proceedings if in its view, because of the compromise between the offender and victim, the possibility of conviction is remote and bleak and continuation of criminal case would put accused to great oppression and prejudice and extreme injustice would be caused to him by not quashing the criminal case despite full and complete settlement and compromise with the victim. In other words, the High Court must consider whether it would be unfair or contrary to the interest of justice to continue with the criminal proceeding or continuation of the criminal proceeding would tantamount to abuse of process of law despite settlement and compromise between the victim and wrongdoer and whether to secure the ends of justice, it is appropriate that criminal case is put to an end and if 4 the answer to the above question(s) is in afÏrmative, the High Court shall be well within its jurisdiction to quash the criminal proceeding. 62. In view of the above, it cannot be said that B.S. Joshi, Nikhil Merchant and Manoj Sharma were not correctly decided. We answer the reference accordingly. Let these matters be now listed before the Bench(es) concerned.” 7. . The Supreme Court in B.S.Joshi & Ors. v. State of Haryana & Anr., reported in (2003) 4 SCC 675 has held as under : “14. There is no doubt that the object of introducing Chapter XX-A containing Section 498A in the Indian Penal Code was to prevent the torture to a woman by her husband or by relatives of her husband. Section 498A was added with a view to punishing a husband and his relatives who harass or torture the wife to coerce her or her relatives to satisfy unlawful demands of dowry. The hyper-technical view would be counter productive and would act against interests of women and against the object for which this provision was added. There is every likelihood that non-exercise of inherent power to quash the proceedings to meet the ends of justice would prevent women from settling earlier. That is not the object of Chapter XXA of Indian Penal Code. 15. In view of the above discussion, we hold that the High Court in exercise of its inherent powers can quash criminal proceedings or FIR or complaint and Section 320 of the Code does not limit or affect the powers under Section 482 of the Code.” 8. Furthermore, the Supreme Court in the case of Jitendra Raghuvanshi and others v. Babita Raghuvanshi and another reported in (2013) 4 SCC 58 has examined scope of compromise under Section 320 of Cr.P.C. in offence of non-compoundable nature. 9. The Supreme Court referred to various cases and has laid down that in cases of matrimonial matters, court should exercise power under Section 482 of Cr.P.C./528 of BNSS sparingly and only it may exercise when the court is convinced, on the basis of material on record, that allowing the proceedings to continue would be an abuse of process of court or that the ends of justice require that the proceedings ought to be quashed. 5 10. Considering the fact that the petitioners and respondent No.2 have settled their disputes amicably outside of the Court and respondent No.2 does not want to continue with criminal case, it would be in the interest of justice to quash the criminal proceedings pending before the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Kota, District Raipur in Criminal Case No. 15477 of 2016. 11. For the foregoing reasons, the petition is allowed and criminal proceedings pending before the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Kota, District Bilaspur in Criminal Case No. 15477 of 2016 against the petitioners are hereby quashed. Sd/- (Arvind Kumar Verma) Judge Jyoti Digitally signed by JYOTI JHA Date: 2025.03.22 16:19:02 +0530