Point of Law : Objective of every legal system is to ensure maintenance of peace and harmony in society - In order to avoid further disturbance in lives of private parties hereto and also third parties involved with them, it will serve interest of justice, in case FIR lodged against petitioner at instance of respondent No.2 along with all consequential criminal proceedings are ordered to be quashed.

JUDGMENT :

(Satyen Vaidya, J.)

1. By way of instant petition, the petitioner has sought quashing of FIR No. 39 of 2020, dated 04.12.2020, under Sections 376 and 506 of the IPC registered at Police Station Women Solan, District Solan, H.P. and consequential criminal proceedings arising therefrom.

2. It is averred in the petition that no case was made out against the petitioner on the basis of allegations levelled against him in the aforesaid FIR. The contention of petitioner is that there were no allegations that when the petitioner for the first time maintained physical relations with the prosecutrix, he had done it in a bad faith or with intent to deceive her.

3. During the pendency of petition, Cr.MP No. 3752 of 2022 was moved on behalf of the petitioner with a prayer to take on record compromise deed executed between the petitioner and respondent No.2-prosecutrix. Prayer was allowed and compromise deed, Annexure P-1 was taken on record.

4. The perusal of contents of compromise deed reveal that the prosecutrix has decided to withdraw from prosecution due to the fact that she has been married to some other person and was residing happily with him.

5. Petitioner and respondent No.2 were present in Court on 6th December, 2022, as well as today during the course of hearing of the matter. Statement of respondent No.2 has been recorded on oath. She has stated that she does not intend to further prosecute the petitioner as she was now happily married to one Shri Pankaj Sharma in District Una, H.P., and prolongation of litigation might create impediment in her happily married life. The prosecutrix also produced on record a copy of marriage certificate evidencing the factum of her marriage with said Shri Pankaj Sharma. As per the marriage certificate, the prosecutrix was married on 04.05.2022. The statement of petitioner has also been recorded whereby he endorsed the statement made by respondent No.2 to be correct. He further undertook not to interfere in the life of prosecutrix in future.

6. The offence under Section 376 of IPC has been termed to be a serious and heinous offence and generally treated as crime against society as per dictum of Narinder Singh and others Vs. State of Punjab and another, (2014) 6 SCC 466 and State of Madhya Pradesh Vs. Laxmi Narayan and others, (2019) 5 SCC 688.

7. However, in Criminal Appeal No. 1217 of 2020, titled Kapil Gupta Vs. State of NCT of Delhi and anr., decided on 10.08.2022, Hon’ble Supreme Court has observed as under:-

“It can thus be seen that this Court has clearly held that though the Court should be slow in quashing the proceedings wherein heinous and serious offences are involved, the High Court is not foreclosed from examining as to whether there exists material for incorporation of such an offence or as to whether there is sufficient evidence which if proved would lead to proving the charge for the offence charged with. The Court has also to take into consideration as to whether the settlement between the parties is going to result into harmony between them which may improve their mutual relationship.”

8. Keeping in view the aforesaid exposition, I am of the considered view that the peculiar facts of instant case warrant exercise of jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C., to quash the FIR lodged at the instance of respondent No.2 against petitioner. The contents of FIR as also the contents of statement made by the prosecutrix before this Court does not reveal that she had alleged the existence of bad faith or deceipt in the conduct of the petitioner. In fact, there is no allegations that the alleged promise to marry made by the petitioner was false from very inception. In the backdrop of absence of such allegations, Sit cannot be said with certainty that the alleged facts would be sufficient for conviction of petitioner under Section 376 of the IPC. Even otherwise, now the prosecutrix has shown her intent to withdraw from prosecution. She has stated her peculiar reason for such wit