The discretionary power of the High Court to quash criminal proceedings should be exercised sparingly and with great caution, and only to prevent abuse of process of law or to secure the ends of justice.

1. In the instant petition, the petitioners seek quashing of challan and charges framed in the proceedings arising from FIR No.14/2014, Crime Branch Police, Jammu, pending before 2nd additional Sessions judge, Jammu..

2. The material facts of the case are that the complainant party had only 09 Kanals and 18 Marlas of land comprised of only Khasra No.132 at Village Jagtu Chak. They agreed to sell the land to the petitioners for a consideration of Rs.2,25,000/- and after obtaining the whole consideration amount, executed an Agreement to sell on 17th December, 1999 and delivered the possession. They also executed an irrevocable power of attorney on 08th April, 2000, authorizing the applicants to sell or do anything with the land, which the owners were capable of doing. In consequence of the agreement to sell and Power of Attorney, the applicants executed a Sale Deed in favour of their father on 29th February, 2000, which was registered by the Sub-Registrar, R.S. Pura are in possession thereof since 1999. The complainant party never raised any objection till 2013. At the time of executing the Sale Deed, it transpired that the Khasra number of the land belonging to the complainant was not 138, which was mentioned in Agreement to sell and power of attorney, but 132 and that the land bearing Khasra No.138 was 10 Kanals and belonged to Koshalia, Janak Singh, Indar Singh and others, Rajputs, out of which 04 Kanals and 16 Marlas is under PWD road and the rest under the personal cultivation of the owners. This information was given by Patwari, whom the petitioners approached for getting the requisite revenue papers for sale execution of Sale Deed. Thereafter, the petitioners approached the complainants to get the Khasra number corrected. They kept the POA with them for some days and returned inserting the digit ‘2’ in place of digit ‘8’ and the applicants executed the Sale Deed. The applicants are rustic villagers and did not know how to get the digit ‘8’ replaced by digit ‘2’. The complainant party all reside in Jammu Capital area and four are the officers. Most of them are KAS Officers and, thus, they were able to mislead the petitioners.

3. It is stated in the instant petition that the complainants, who know what they have done when prices of land shoot upto sky, hatched a conspiracy to get the land back and filed a Civil Suit for declaration that they have executed POA for Khasra No.138, but the Sale Deed has been executed for 132 and sought interim injunction. Thereafter, the complainants approached police for registering a case of forgery. They were told that no offence was made out. Thereafter, they filed a Complaint under the provisions mentioned above without filing record of Khasra No.138 before the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jammu, who made an order under Section 156 (3) CPC to Crime Branch, who after blackmailing the applicants produced the Challan, which was assigned to the Court of learned 2nd Additional Sessions Judge, Jammu. The petitioners made an application to the learned Trial Court that no offence is made out against the applicants-accused, but only against the complainants, who had deposed during investigation under Sections 164-A and 161 of the RPC that they had executed power of attorney for Khasra No.138 and that the complainants have made agreement to sell, but the petitioners have erased digit 8 and forget digit 2, making it 132, whereas revenue record of Khasra No.138 was, as submitted above and the Patwari’s Report filed with the Challan show that the complainants have no ownership or possession over Khasra No.138.

4. It is also stated in the instant petition that though the matter was argued at length by the petitioners’ counsel, the learned Trial Judge did not consider the arguments and extensive law cited and charged the petitioners according to Challan and only remarked that this matter is for another forum and not for Trial Court and did not say anything about the conduct of the complainan