Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. represented Appellant Nos. 1 and 2, Kailashben Mahendrabhai Patel and Rahul Patel, before the Hon’ble Supreme Court and secured a favorable verdict directing the quashing of the FIR and chargesheet filed inter-alia, against Appellant Nos. 1 and 2, the step-mother-law and step brother-in-law of the complainant.
The Disputes Team at SAM&Co. was led by Shally Bhasin (Partner). The SLP was preferred by the Appellants against the Final Judgement dated 05.05.2017 passed by the High Court Bombay, Aurangabad Bench rejecting the Petition under Section 482 of the CrPC seeking quashing of FIR under Sections 498-A, 323, 504, 506 read with Section 34 of IPC and Charge Sheet dated 30.07.2013 pending at Jalna, Maharashtra.
It was the case of the Appellants that the FIR filed by the complainant is a classic case of abuse of Section 498-A IPC and it is essentially a civil dispute being given the colour of a criminal offence among other legal grounds.
Ms. Bhasin was assisted by Prateek Gupta (Principal Associate), Prateek Yadav (Senior Associate) and Jyotsna Punshi (Associate) in the Supreme Court. Dr. Shardul S. Shroff was the Advocate-on-Record for Appellant Nos. 1 and 2. The SAM&Co. team had briefed Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Senior Advocate and Mr. S. Niranjan Reddy, Senior Advocate, to argue the matter.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court while allowing the Civil Appeal and quashing the FIR, held that this case is “yet another instance of abuse of criminal process and it would not be fair and just to subject the appellants to the entire criminal law process”. It further held that “there is no prohibition against quashing of the criminal proceedings even after the charge sheet has been filed”. The Hon’ble Court also remarked that “Complaint/ FIR is intended only to further the interest of the complainant and her husband in the civil dispute”.
