Criminal law can't become means to settle scores: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court has said that criminal law cannot become a platform for initiation of vindictive proceedings to settle personal scores and vendettas, and derided the increasing resort to lodging of FIRs to settle civil disputes.

While quashing an FIR lodged more than two decades ago for the offence of cheating in a land transaction case, a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said, "In recent years, the machinery of criminal justice is being misused by certain persons for their vested interests and for achieving their oblique motives and agenda."

While Jharkhand high court took 15 years to dismiss the plea for quashing of the FIR, SC took another six years to reverse the HC verdict.

Writing the judgment, Justice Nagarathna said given the misuse of criminal law , "courts have to be vigilant against such tendencies". tnn

SC: Duty of HC to step in, stop abuse of law

Chiding the complainant for his inability to prove charges against the appellant, court said such actions "create significant divisions & distrust among people while also placing an unnecessary strain on the judicial system, particularly criminal courts".

Justice Nagarathna said courts must ensure that such "acts of omission and commission having an adverse impact on the fabric of our society must be nipped in the bud".

The bench said every act of breach of trust may not result in a penal offence unless there is evidence of a manipulating act of fraudulent misappropriation of property. "It is duty of HC to intervene where continuation of criminal proceedings would amount to an abuse of process of law, or where the dispute is purely of a civil nature and criminal colour has been artificially given to it," it said.