Rape cases can not be quashed based on a compromise between parties: Allahabad HC

In the case of Pravin Kumar Singh and 2 others Vs State of U.P., Justice Ajai Kumar Srivastava held that a case under section 376 IPC read with sec 3and 4 of the POCSO Act cannot be quashed based on a compromise entered between the parties, the victim is not legally permissible.

The Applicant in the present case of 2014 was a close acquaintance of the victim and the co-applicants were charged under 504 and 506 IPC. An Application under 482 CrPC was filed for dismissal of the 2014 case on the basis that Applicant no 1 and the victim were married now and are living together as husband and wife. The counsel for the victim also supported the application.

But, in the statements recorded by the victim under sections 161 and 164 CrPC, she supported the prosecution, thus the Additional Government Advocate argued that “Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 has been enacted by the Legislature for prevention and protection of children as defined in the said Act…the victim was a child on the date of occurrence. Therefore, no compromise between the victim and the accused/ applicants is permissible in law. Therefore, the present application is misconceived, which is liable to be dismissed”.

The Court referred to the series of Judgements by the Apex Court on this matter and observed that “the power of quashing of criminal proceedings should be exercised very sparingly and with circumspection and that too in rarest of the rare cases and it was not justified for the Court in embarking upon an enquiry as to the reliability or genuineness or otherwise of the allegations made in the FIR or the complaint and that the inherent powers do not confer any arbitrary jurisdiction on the Court to act according to its whims and fancies”.

In a recent judgement of the co-ordinate bench of the HC, in the matters of Om Prakash Vs State of U.P., the court dismissed the application under 482 CrPC and in view of the same the present application also lacked the merits and was dismissed and the court held that criminal proceedings under section 376 IPC and POCSO Act can not be quashed on the basis of the compromise entered into between the accused and the victim.

Swarnabh Saha, St. Xavier’s University,Kolkata, Bcom-LLB, Sem-6

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