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DIPAK MISRA, PRAFULLA C.PANT
Priyanka Srivastava – Appellant
Versus
State of U. P. – Respondent
Key Points: - The judgment emphasizes that when a case reaches a superior court with an adverse order, the respondents must be given an opportunity of hearing. (!) - It holds that a Magistrate must apply his mind and not merely narrate allegations when passing an order under Section 156(3) CrPC. (!) (!) - There are cautions about passing 156(3) orders in matters already pending under SARFAESI Act; section 32 protections under SARFAESI must be kept in view. (!) (!) (!) - Section 156(3) applications should be supported by an affidavit detailing availed provisions of sections 154(1) and 154(3); Magistrate should verify veracity of the affidavit. (!) - The case reiterates the right of accused or "the other person" to be heard in revision when a Magistrate dismisses a complaint under Section 203, due to Section 401(2) rights. (!) (!) - The decision clarifies that registration of an FIR under Section 156(3) is not automatic and must reflect application of mind; it reviews case law including Ramdev Food, Dilawar Singh, Maksud Saiyed, etc. (!) (!) - The Court allows quashing of FIR where 156(3) directions were misused to pressure financial institutions; emphasizes protecting good faith actions under SARFAESI Act Section 32. (!) (!) (!) - It sets forth that 156(3) applications require affidavit, careful consideration, and may consider prior recourse to sections 154(1) and 154(3). (!) (!) - The judgment ultimately quashes the FIR registered in Crime No. 298 of 2011 and calls for vigilant application of 156(3) by magistrates. (!)
JUDGMENT
Dipak Misra, J. —The present appeal projects and frescoes a scenario which is not only disturbing but also has the potentiality to create a stir compelling one to ponder in a perturbed state how some unscrupulous, unprincipled and deviant litigants can ingeniously and innovatively design in a nonchalant manner to knock at the doors of the Court, as if, it is a laboratory where multifarious experiments can take place and such skillful persons can adroitly abuse the process of the Court at their own will and desire by painting a canvas of agony by assiduous assertions made in the application though the real intention is to harass the statutory authorities, without any remote remorse, with the inventive design primarily to create a mental pressure on the said officials as individuals, for they would not like to be dragged to a court of law to face in criminal cases, and further pressurize in such a fashion so that financial institution which they represent would ultimately be constrained to accept the request for “one-time settlement” with the fond hope that the obstinate defaulters who had borrowed money from it would withdraw the cases instituted against them. The facts, as
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