Honble THOMAS, J.–Leave granted.

(2). The grievance of the appellant is simple and apparently innocuous that he too may be heard by the court. But the High Court rolled down the shutters before him saying he has no right to be heard and the court has no power to permit him to be heard. As his grievance was compounded by such denial he has filed this appeal by special leave.

(3). A person accused of certain offences moved the High Court of Delhi for quashing the criminal proceedings pending against him in a Magistrates court. Appellant informed the High Court that the criminal proceedings were initiated at his behest and hence he too may be heard before the criminal proceedings are to be quashed. A learned single Judge of the High Court of Delhi, while foreclosing the appellant from doing so, observed that the Court is ``of the considered opinion that the right of the complainant to be heard ceases once cognizance is taken and he cannot thereafter continue to participate in the proceedings as if he were the aggrieved party who must have his say in proceedings.

(4). The background is the following. Appellant filed a complaint before the police alleging that respondents 2 and 3 committed offences of criminal breach of trust and cheating. As he felt that no action was taken by the police on the complaint he filed a writ petition before the High Court for a direction to register FIR. However, before the writ petition was disposed of, the police informed the court that the FIR was already registered on the complaint filed by the appellant. Respondents then moved the High Court in a writ petition for quashing the FIR, and the appellant was also allowed to be impleaded in that writ petition. For some reasons the said writ petition was not followed up by the respondents and it was subsequently withdrawn.

(5). The police, after investigation, filed a charge sheet against respondents for offence under Sections 420, 406 and 120B of the IPC and the court issued process to the respondents requiring them to appear before the Court on 31.5.2000. At that stage respondents filed the present petition before the High Court praying for quashing the criminal proceedings pending before the Magistrate court pursuant to the aforesaid charge- sheet filed by the police. In the writ petition the appellant was not made a party and therefore a petition was filed in the High Court for impleading the appellant as a party. The main plank of the appellant before the High Court was the decision of this court in Bhagwant Singh vs. Commissioner of Police (1). The learned Single Judge of the High Court of Delhi felt that the observations made by this Court in an earlier decision Thakur Ram vs. State of Bihar (2) are more appropriate to the fact situation and basing on those observations learned Single Judge rejected the petition filed by the appellant before the High Court.

(6). The observations of this court in Thakur Ram which persuaded the learned Single Judge to shut the door before the appellant are the following :

``In a case which has proceeded on a police report a private party has really no locus standi. No doubt the terms of Section 435 (old Cr.P.C) are very wide and he can even take up the matter suo motu. The criminal law is not, however, to be used as an instrument of wrecking private vengeance by an aggrieved party against the person who, according to that party, has caused injury to it. Barring a few exceptions, in criminal mattes the party who is treated as aggrieved party is the State which is the custodian of the social interests of the community at large and so it is for the State to take all the steps necessary for brining the person who has acted against the social interests of the community to book......

(7). That was a case in which the Public Prosecutor filed an application before a Magistrate in a pending trial for amending the charge by incorporating two more offences which are exclusively triable by the court of Sessions and prayed for the case

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