The main legal point established in the judgment is that the nature of proceedings, whether civil or criminal, depends upon the nature of the right violated and the nature of relief sought.

1. These intra-court appeals impugn the common judgment dated 14th June, 2012 of a learned Single Judge of this Court of dismissal of W.P.(C) Nos.3470/2012, 3471/2012 & 3472/2012 preferred by the appellants respectively. The said writ petitions were filed by the respective appellants assailing, i) the communication dated 13th December, 2011 of the Director of Prosecution, Delhi to the Principal Secretary (Home), seeking instructions whether the concerned Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) has to press the application filed before the Court of the learned Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM), Delhi under Section 321 of the Code of LPAs Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C.) for withdrawal from prosecution in case FIRs No.90/2000, 99/20002 and 148/2002 registered at police station Connaught Place and Defence Colony; and, ii) the order dated 15th December, 2011 of Hon’ble the Lieutenant Governor, Delhi agreeing with the proposal in the said communication dated 13th December, 2011 not to press the applications for withdrawal of the aforesaid cases and to allow the trial thereof to proceed on merits.

2. These appeals are accompanied with applications for condonation of 340 days delay in re-filing thereof. Notice of the said applications only was issued. A detailed reply opposing the condonation of delay has been filed by the original complainant at whose instance the appellants were being prosecuted.

3. The matters came up before us on 16th January, 2014 when, without prejudice to the aspect of delay, and in the light of the judgment of the full Bench of this Court in C.S. Agarwal Vs. State (2011) ILR 6 Delhi 701, we asked the counsel for the appellants to satisfy us as to the maintainability of these appeals. On the request of the counsel for the appellants, the matter was adjourned for hearing on this aspect. We have heard the senior counsels for the appellants as well as the senior counsel for the original complainant on the aspect of delay as well as of maintainability of these appeals.

4. The Full Bench of this Court, in C.S. Agarwal supra, was constituted to answer the following reference:

"Whether the writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing a FIR amount to invoking „original jurisdiction’or these proceedings are to be treated as invoking „criminal jurisdiction”

5. The aforesaid question assumed importance because, if the writ petitions had invoked original jurisdiction, the Letters Patent Appeal (LPA) would be competent; on the other hand if the writ petitions were to be treated as invoking criminal jurisdiction, then the intra-court appeal under the Letters Patent of this Court was not maintainable.

6. The Full Bench, after examining a number of precedents, held:

“19. No doubt, as per the aforesaid pronouncements explaining the nature of power conferred under Article 226 of the Constitution, the High court in such proceedings exercises original jurisdiction. At the same time, it is also clarified that the said jurisdiction is not to be confused with the "original civil jurisdiction" of the High Court. Further, proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution would be treated as original civil proceedings only when it concerns civil rights. A fortiori, if it concerns a criminal matter, then such proceedings would be original criminal proceedings. Letters Patent would lie when the Single Judge decides the writ petition in proceedings concerning civil rights. On the other hand, if these proceedings are concerned with rights in criminal law domain, then it can be said that the Single Judge was exercising his 'criminal jurisdiction' while dealing with such a petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution.

20. For this reason, we cannot agree with the extreme position taken by the Appellants that the exercise of powers under Article 226 of the Constitution would never tantamount to exercising criminal jurisdiction, irre