Order
1. Leave granted. The appellants are before us by way of this special leave petition aggrieved by the order passed by the High Court of Bombay at Nagpur Bench dated 27-2-2015 in Vijay v. State of Maharashtra 2015 SCC OnLine Bom 8403, wherein the High Court has dismissed the application filed under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (for short “CrPC”) against the order of the trial court dated 16-8-2012.
2. The facts of the case in a nutshell are: the husband of Respondent 2 herein executed an agreement to sell a plot (farmland) in favour of Appellant 1 and also handed over the vacant possession of the plot. When the husband of Respondent 2 failed to perform his part of the contract, Appellant 1 filed a suit seeking specific performance of the agreement to sell. It appears, in the meantime, that HDFC Bank issued auction notification as the husband of Respondent 2 failed to make the loan payment. Then Respondent 2 and HDFC Bank were also added as the defendants to the suit. After the death of the second respondent's husband, she filed a private complaint against the appellant alleging that the appellant has forced her husband to sign on blank papers and was threatening him from 1999 to 2001. The trial court, by order dated 16-8-2012, has issued a direction to the police to register the complaint as the allegations disclose commission of a cognizable offence and further directed the police to investigate the same under Section 156(3) CrPC and send a report to the court. Pursuant to the order, the police has registered a complaint on 28-8-2012.
3. The appellants approached the High Court under Section 482 CrPC assailing the order passed by the Magistrate dated 16-8-2012 in directing the police to register the crime and the second relief is to quash FIR No. 91 of 2012 which is registered against the appellants under Sections 420, 468, 506, 367 and 392 IPC. Initially, the High Court admitted the application and granted stay of operation of the order of the trial court and further investigation pursuant to the registration of FIR. Later on, the High Court has dismissed the application filed by the appellants. Therefore, they are before us challenging the order passed by the High Court.
4. We have heard the counsel on either side and perused the material available on record.
5. A close scrutiny of the order of the High Court reveals that the whole basis for the High Court to pass the order impugned is that there is an alternative remedy available to the petitioner i.e by way of revision under Section 156(3) CrPC. Hence, the jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC cannot be exercised by indirect method when statutory remedy of revision is available. Hence, the High Court disposed of the application reserving liberty to the appellants to take appropriate steps as are available in law and further directed to complete the investigation within three months from the date of the order.
6. The learned counsel appearing for the appellants relied upon the judgment of this Court in Dhariwal Tobacco Products Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra (2009) 2 SCC 370:
“6. … Only because a revision petition is maintainable, the same by itself, in our considered opinion, would not constitute a bar for entertaining an application under Section 482 of the Code. Even where a revision application is barred, as for example the remedy by way of Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, this Court has held that the remedies under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India would be available.”
The learned counsel further relied upon the recent judgment of this Court in Prabhu Chawla v. State of Rajasthan (2016) 16 SCC 30.
7. After hearing the counsel and also after perusing the impugned order, we are of the considered opinion that the order of the High Court has no legs to stand in view of the law laid down by this Court in Prabhu Chawla (2016) 16 SCC 30. In the above referred case, in view of the divergent opinions of this Court in Dhariwal Tobacco Products Ltd. (2009) 2 SCC 370 and Mohit v. State of U.P (2013) 7 SCC 789, the matter was placed before the three-Judge Bench of this Court. The three-Judge Bench took the view that Section 482 CrPC begins with a non obstante clause to state:
“482. Saving of inherent powers of High Court.—Nothing in this Code shall be deemed to limit or affect the inherent powers of the High Court to make such orders as may be necessary to give effect to any order under this Code, or to prevent abuse of the process of any court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice.”
As Section 397 CrPC is attracted against all orders other than interlocutory, a contrary view would limit the availability of inherent powers under Section 482 CrPC only to petty interlocutory orders! A situation which is wholly unwarranted and undesirable. The three-Judge Bench has confirmed the law laid down by this Court in Dhariwal Tobacco Products Ltd. (2009) 2 SCC 370
8. In view of the above settled law, mere availability of alternative remedy cannot be a ground to disentitle the relief under Section 482 CrPC and, apart from this, we feel that the learned Judge without appreciating any of the factual and legal position, in a mechanical way, passed the impugned order, which warrants interference by this Court. Accordingly, the order of the High Court is set aside and the matter is remanded to the High Court for reconsideration in the light of the settled legal position.
9. The appeal is disposed of accordingly.