The judgment establishes the importance of valid explanation for delay in filing a complaint and the requirement to establish a prima facie case for summoning the accused under Section 380 IPC.

S. Muralidhar, J.

1. This is a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 (CrPC) seeking the setting aside of an order dated 29th June 2007 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ), Delhi in Criminal (R) No. 2 of 2006 whereby the order dated 4th July 2007 passed by the learned Metropolitan Magistrate (MM), Delhi dismissing the criminal complaint of the respondent was reversed.

.2. The facts leading of the filing of the present petition are that the marriage between the Petitioner and son of the Respondent was solemnized on 11th March 1999. Consequent upon disputes between the parties that arose soon thereafter,

.the father of the Petitioner filed a complaint against the Respondent and her family members on 24th Jun 1999 in the Crime Against Women (CAW) Cell Nanakpura. Ultimately an FIR No. 518 of 2000 under Sections 498-A/406/34 IPC came to be registered at Police Station Shalimar Bagh against the Respondent and her family members.

3. It is stated by learned Counsel for the Petitioner that as a counterblast to the filing of the aforementioned criminal proceeding, the Respondent filed a criminal complaint under Sections 380/420/34 IPC on 7th October 2005 against the Petitioner, wherein she alleged that the Petitioner on 1st April 1999, while leaving her matrimonial home, had taken the jewellery given to her in the dowry and wari to her parental house. It was further alleged by the Respondent that the Petitioner also took away a box containing the jewellery of the respondent and certain jewellery of her son which were gifted to him by his grand mother. In para 7 of the complaint it was alleged that the Respondents son Rajeev Puri had a dialogue with the mother of the Petitioner in which she is alleged to have admitted that the Petitioner had taken away the box containing the jewellery of the Respondent. It is stated that the Petitioner had kept the matter lingering by promising that the jewellery would be returned. Thereafter the respondent was constrained to file the aforementioned complaint.

4. By an order dated 2nd March 2006 the learned MM, after going through the complaint as well as the pre-summoning evidence adduced by the Respondent, concluded that ingredients of Section 380/420 IPC were not even prima facie made out and accordingly dismissed the complaint.

5. Aggrieved by the dismissal of the complaint the Respondent filed Criminal (R) No. 2 of 2006 to the court of the learned ASJ. By the impugned order dated 29th June 2007 the learned ASJ reversed the order dated 2nd March 2006 passed by the learned MM with a direction to the learned MM to issue summons to the Petitioner to face trial under Section 380 IPC and proceed further with the complaint in accordance with law.

.6. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner submits that the impugned order is unsustainable in law because when the complaint is read as a whole not even a prima facie case under Section 380 IPC is made out against the Petitioner. He submits that DD No. 9A dated 2nd July 1999 recorded by the police at the instance of the husband of the petitioner with the Police Station Model Town, Delhi only mentions that the Petitioner left the matrimonial home. It does not allege that the petitioner committed theft of the jewellery of the Respondent. No such allegation has been made in the divorce petition filed subsequently by the petitioners husband. Likewise, no such allegation was made in the application for anticipatory bail filed by the Respondent accused. It is submitted that the filing of the aforementioned criminal complaint six and a half years after the Petitioner left the matrimonial home was malafide and purely as a counterblast to the criminal proceedings instituted by the Petitioner against the Respondent and her family members.

7. On behalf of the Respondent it is contended that in the complaint there was an explanation for the delay in filing the complaint to the effect that the parties were expecting an amicable se