JUDGMENT :

1. By way of this petition, the petitioner has prayed for quashing of the proceedings pending before the Court of learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rampur, in case No.143 of 2021, titled as State Versus Gulab Chand and Another, arising out of FIR No.28/2021, dated 22.03.2021, under Sections 307, 382, 201 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, registered at Police Station, Kumarsain, District Shimla, H.P.

2. Brief facts necessary for the adjudication of this petition are that the above mentioned FIR was registered at Police Station Kumarsain, District Shimla, H.P., on 22.03.2021. As per the petitioner, she as well as one Shri Gulab Chand were arrayed as accused in the matter. After the investigation was completed by the police, challan was presented in the Court of learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rampur, under Section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code. According to the petitioner, she has been wrongly involved in the matter and accordingly, this petition has been filed, praying for quashing of the criminal proceedings as well as the FIR, inter alia, on the ground that the allegations which stand levelled against the petitioner are vague and baseless and they do not constitute any offence and further the petitioner being Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat was a public representative and initiating vague proceedings against her also amounts to loss to the public trust.

3. Learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner has argued that the petitioner has been roped as an accused just to harass her as she happened to be an elected public representative of the Panchayat concerned. He has submitted that scrutiny of the documents submitted by police under Section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code would demonstrate that no case is in fact made out against the petitioner. Learned Senior Counsel has with vehemence argued that the only eyewitness to the occurrence, Smt. Bhagmali i.e. the victim, in her statement which was recorded at I.G.M.C. Shimla, H.P. in the presence of a doctor, on 03.04.2021, on which date this witness was duly certified to be fit enough to give a statement, had nowhere named the petitioner as an accused, but it was in her second statement recorded on 08.04.2021 that the petitioner was also named as an accused by the victim. He submitted that when on 03.04.2021, the victim was fit enough to make a statement, then the subsequent statement of the victim recorded on 08.04.2021, cannot be taken into consideration and the subsequent improvement which has been made by the victim cannot be used to falsely implicate the petitioner in the crime. Learned Senior Counsel has thus submitted that on this count alone, this petition deserves to be allowed and the FIR in issue qua the petitioner needs to be quashed and set aside. He has also argued that the victim has an ulterior motive to falsely implicate the petitioner and the motive being that the daughter of the victim had contested and lost the elections of Pradhan against the petitioner and this entire exercise of falsely implicating the petitioner stood undertaken by respondent No.2 to tarnish the image of the petitioner. Learned Senior Counsel has heavily relied upon the documents appended with the petition and on the strength of contents thereof, he has argued that the continuation of the proceedings against the petitioner is an abuse of the process of law and accordingly, a prayer has been made for quashing of the FIR.

4. The petition has been resisted by the respondent/State as well as by the learned counsel appearing for the private respondent, inter alia, on the ground that the present proceedings are misconceived and is an attempt to thwart the criminal process which stands initiated against the petitioner and another. According to the respondents, no case is made out for either quashing of the FIR or ensuing criminal proceedings and the filing of this petition is nothing but an abuse of the process of law

5. I have heard learned counsel for