A protest complaint can be treated as a continuation of proceedings, allowing the Magistrate to take cognizance despite prior police reports.

ORDER

Dated : 23^rd February, 2026 The accused persons 1 to 3 in C.C No. 139 of 2023 on the file of the Judicial Magistrate of First Class-IV (Mobile), Thiruvananthapuram arising out of Crime No. 61 of 2014 of Fort police station, Thiruvananthapuram, filed this petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C, praying for quashing all further proceedings against them.

2. One of the contentions raised by the petitioners is that with respect to the very same incident, the police already filed a report against the first accused alone, alleging the offence punishable under Section 498A IPC and the same is pending before the jurisdictional Magistrate as C.C 146 of 2015. With respect to the very same incident, the de facto complainant, namely, the third respondent filed C.M.P No. 351 of 2023, styling the same as a protest complaint against all the petitioners, in which, the learned Magistrate after conducting an enquiry, took cognizance of the offences punishable under Sections 498A, 406, 120B r/w 34 IPC and as such now two cases are pending with respect to the very same incident. This court has already quashed C.C No. 146 of 2015 as per order in Crl.M.C.No.7507/2025. Therefore, at present C.C No. 139 of 2023, based on the protest complaint alone, is pending against the petitioners.

3. When this matter came up for arguments, the contention raised by the learned counsel for the petitioners was that, with respect to the incident that occurred in the year 2014, the complaint was filed only in the year 2023 and as such the cognizance taken in the year 2023 with respect to the incident that occurred in 2014 is barred by limitation. Therefore, the learned prayed for quashing all further proceedings against the petitioners.

4. The petition was strongly opposed by the learned counsel for the third respondent as well as by the learned Public Prosecutor.

5. According to the learned counsel for the third respondent, Annexure A complaint was filed during the pendency of C.C No. 146 of 2015 as a protest complaint and as such, it cannot be taken and considered as an independent proceedings. Therefore, according to the learned counsel for the third respondent, there is no limitation in this case. As argued by the learned council for the petitioners, the third respondent filed a private complaint alleging offences punishable under Section 498A, 406, 120B and 34IPC against all the three petitioners. When the above complaint was sent to the SHO under Section 156 (3) Cr.P.C, an FIR was registered against all the three petitioners including all the above offences. However, after investigation the Investigating Officer filed the final report only against the first petitioner and all the offences other than the one under Section 498A, were deleted. It was in the above context that the third respondent preferred Annexure A protest complaint.

6. According to the learned counsel for the petitioners, the third respondent has no case that she has not received notice from the learned Magistrate with regard to the omission of petitioners 2 and 3 from the party array and also with regard to the omission of the other provisions from the final report. The above argument was stoutly denied by the learned counsel for the third respondent. The learned counsel for the third respondent has invited my attention to the last paragraph in Annexure A, in which it is stated that the complainant came to know about the deletion of the petitioners 2 and 3 as well as the remaining sections from the final report only when she verified the records and also that there was no laches or willful omission on her part in the delay in filing Annexure A. On a perusal of Annexure A, it can be seen that by the averment made at the end of Annexure A, what the co