The Supreme Court recently observed that courts, as protectors of the law and servants of the law, must always ensure that frivolous cases do not pervert the sacrosanct nature of the law.
A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Krishna Murari further observed that the law is a sacrosanct entity that exists to serve the ends of justice.
A division bench made these observations while allowing an appeal filed by a businessman, Hasmukhlal Vora, whose plea under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code to quash the criminal complaint against him and his company was dismissed.
“While it is true that the quashing of a criminal complaint must be done only in the rarest of rare cases, it is still the duty of the High Court to look into each and every case with great detail to prevent miscarriage of justice…” added the division bench.
In the case, a show-cause memo was issued to Vora after nearly three years of an inspection being conducted at his site and after a further lapse of one year and four months, a complaint was filed against him and his company.
The top court found that the authorities had provided no explanation for the extraordinary delay of more than four years between the initial site inspection, the show-cause notice, and the complaint.
In this regard, the bench further noted that while inordinate delay in itself may not be grounds for quashing a criminal complaint, unexplained inordinate delay must be taken into consideration as a very crucial factor as grounds for quashing a criminal complaint.
While concluding, the bench opined that the purpose of filing a complaint and initiating criminal proceedings must exist solely to meet the ends of justice, and the law must not be used as a tool to harass the accused.
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