The Madras High Court in Jegan @ Ellamaran and others v. State and another quashed a case against 5 persons who had allegedly indulged in a protest and had raised various slogans against Prime Minister for announcing Demonetization. The said persons were charged with offences under Sections 143, 188 of IPC @ 143, 149, 353 IPC read with 7 [1]( a ) of CL Act.
It was the plea of the petitioner that the prosecution has been launched with false allegations and even when the entire prosecution case is taken at face value, the same would not constitute any offence and continuing the prosecution is nothing but an abuse of the process of law. Therefore, submitted that the same may be quashed.
The Court observed that while exercising the power under Section 482 of Cr.P.C, the Court should be slow, at the same time, if the Court finds that from the entire materials collected by the prosecution taken as a whole, would not constitute any offence, in such situation, directing the parties to undergo ordeal of trial will be a futile exercise and it will infringe the right of the persons.
Further, it also referred to the case of State of Haryana and others Vs. Bhajan Lal and Others reported in 1992 Supp (1) Supreme Court Cases 335 wherein the principle mentioned above was reiterated by the top court.
Therefore, the Court further observed that “Even as per the FIR, it is not the case of the defacto complainant that the petitioners along with other accused have unlawfully assembled and used force or violence and hence, offences under sections 143 of IPC is not attracted. Further it is not the case of the prosecution that the accused have used criminal force to deter public servant from discharging his official duty to attract the offence under section 353 of IPC and section 7 [1] [a] of the Criminal Law Amendment Act.”
In light of these observations, the charges against the petitioner were quashed and it was held that the mere launching of FIR by the prosecution itself is not sufficient to reach to the conclusion that offences are made out and the materials collected by the prosecution do not support for proving the case and continuing the prosecution on shaky or without any materials is a clear abuse of process of law.