The court can exercise its power under Section 482 to quash criminal proceedings if the compromise between the parties is genuine and voluntary, and the pendency of the litigation would be an abuse of process of law.

JUDGMENT

Sanjay Vashisth, J. (Oral) - The present petition under Section 482, Cr.P.C., has been filed by the petitioners, for quashing of FIR No. 73, dated 04.06.2020 (Annexure P-1), for the offences punishable under Sections 148, 149, 323, 324, 506 of IPC (Section 326 of IPC added later on), registered at Police Station Panjokhra, District Ambala, and all the consequential proceedings arising therefrom, on the basis of compromise dated 31.07.2020 (Annexure P-2).

2. Vide order dated 17.08.2022, the affected parties were directed to appear before the learned trial Court/Illaqa Magistrate, for getting their respective statements recorded with regard to the compromise. The trial Court/Illaqa Magistrate was to submit a report in this regard giving certain details as enumerated in the said order.

3. Pursuant to the order dated 17.08.2022, passed by this Court, the parties have appeared before learned Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Naraingarh, and as per report dated 31.08.2022, submitted to this Court, both the parties have got recorded their respective statements in Court. The operative part of the report received from learned Court below is as under:-

' The point wise further reply of the information sought by the Hon'ble High Court is as follows:

1. As per FIR No.73 dated 04.06.2020 and as per statement of respondents No. 2 to 5, six persons namely Sukhwinder Singh son of Nirmal Singh, Manjit Singh son of Avtar Singh, Baldev Singh son of Pritam Singh and Gurdeep Singh son of Baldev Singh are arrayed as accused in the above stated FIR.

2. As per statement of accused persons, no accused is declared as proclaimed offender in any case.

3. As per the statements of the parties, the compromise has been effected between them by their free will, in sound state of mind, without any coercion or undue influence and compromise is genuine and voluntarily.'

4. Learned counsel for the petitioners urged that due to intervention of the respectable and elderly people of the society, the matter has been resolved and private parties have effected a compromise dated 31.07.2020 (Annexure P-2). At present, there remains no dispute amongst the private parties. He further submits that in view of the compromise so effected between the private parties, pendency of the impugned FIR and consequential proceedings emanating therefrom would be sheer abuse of the process of law.

5. Learned State counsel as also learned counsel for respondents No. 2 to 5, after going through the statements and the report received from learned Court below, very fairly admit that the private parties have resolved their dispute and effected a compromise and that they have no objection if the impugned FIR and all the consequential proceedings are quashed on the basis of the compromise.

6. The Full Bench of this Court in the matter of Kulwinder Singh and others v. State of Punjab and another, 2007 (3) RCR (Criminal) 1052, has observed as under:

'(28) To conclude, it can safely be said that there can never be any hard and fast category which can be prescribed to enable the Court to exercise its power under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. The only principle that can be laid down is the one which has been incorporated in the Section itself, i.e., "to prevent abuse of the process of any Court" or "to secure the ends of justice'.

(29) In Mrs. Shakuntala Sawhney v. Mrs. Kaushalya Sawhney and others, Hon'ble Krishna Iyer, J. aptly summoned up the essence of compromise in the following words:

'The finest hour of justice arrives propitiously when parties, despite falling apart, bury the hatchet and weave a sense of fellowship of reunion.'

(30) The power to do complete justice is the very essence of every judicial justice dispensation system. It cannot be diluted by distorted perceptions and is not a slave to anything, except to the caution and circumspection, the standards of which the Court sets before it, in exercise of such plenary and unfettered power inherently vested in it while donning the cloak of compas