IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Cr.Misc. No.11574 of 2007 HARIBHUSHAN THAKUR @ BACHOL, Son of Mahendra Thakur, Resident of Village-Raghuli, P.S. Bisfi, District- Madhubani…….Petitioner. Versus 1. THE STATE OF BIHAR. 2. Bishudeo Yadav, Son of Sri Rajendra Yadav, Resident of Village- Nurchak, P.S. Bisfi, District-Darbhanga. ……Opposite Parties. ----------- For the Petitioner : Mr. Vishwanath Singh, Advocate. For the State : Mr. Amitesh Kumar, A.P.P. For O.P. No.2 : M/s. R.S. Singh and Saroj Kumar, Advocates. ----------- O R D E R The sole accused of Complaint Case No.183 of 2006 has prayed for the quashing of the entire criminal proceedings arising out of the aforesaid complaint case including the order dated 25.1.2007 passed therein by the learned Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Madhubani, whereby he has taken cognizance of offences under Sections 147/148/323/427 I.P.C. as also 27 of the Arms Act. The complainant, one Bishudeo Yadav, filed the aforesaid complaint on 28.2.2006 alleging inter alia that the complainant is a member of the Panchayat Committee as also a reporter of a daily newspaper “Hindustan”, of Bisfi area and the accused petitioner is at present a Member of the State Assembly from Bisfi Constituency and at the meeting held on 24.2.2006 at the Vidyapati Smarak Bhavan regarding Pulse Polio Programme the accused petitioner addressed the Anganwari Sevikas and threatened them to do work as per his desire failing which he would be compelled to close all the centers. It is - 2 - further alleged that the complainant as reporter of the daily newspaper “Hindustan” sent this news item for publication and accordingly the news was published in the daily newspaper “Hindustan” on 25.2.2006. It is further alleged that after reading the aforesaid news item the accused petitioner became violent and at about 7 P.M. on the same day he threatened the complainant of getting him involved in a false case and thereby ruin him and also abused him. It has also been alleged that at about 10 P.M. on the same day the accused petitioner along with 4-5 other miscreants surrounded the house of the complainant and started abusing him and when the complainant came out of his house the accused petitioner slapped him and also damaged house hold articles worth Rs.5000/-. There is also allegation of the accused petitioner having fired at the complainant and the complainant rushing into his house to save himself. The sound of gun fire attracted the neighbours who gathered and seeing this, the accused with his accomplices fled away. It is said that the villagers organized a panchayati in respect of the aforesaid occurrence on 27.2.2006 and as the accused petitioner failed to turn up the complainant went to the police station where the police on hearing the name of the accused refused to lodge a case and therefore the complaint. It has been submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that he has been falsely implicated in this case on concocted allegations due to enmity. It has further been submitted on behalf of the petitioner that a perusal of the news item published in the newspaper dated 25.2.2006 would clearly show that in fact nothing - 3 - had been published therein against the petitioner which ought to have infuriated him and on the other hand it would appear that as a matter of fact, the complainant had felicitated the present petitioner for his way of work. On this premise, it was submitted that the allegations raised by the complainant were false and that there was, in fact, no genesis for the occurrence. The learned counsel further sought to point out that he had filed Bisfi P.S. Case No.28 of 2006 on 25.2.2006 against the complainant under Section 379 I.P.C. on the ground that some local people had come to him and stated that theft had been committed of Government bricks by the complainant and the brick soling work was being done by old bricks and as a representative of the people he had lodged the aforesaid case against the complainant and the said complaint was by way of a counter blast thereto. It is by now well settled that in a proceeding initiated on a complaint the exercise of the inherent power to quash the proceeding under Section 482 Cr.P.C. is called for only in cases where the complaint does not disclose any offence or is frivolous, vexatious or oppressive and where the allegations set out in the complaint do not constitute an offence of which cognizance is taken by the Magistrate, it is open to the High Court to quash the same. The instant complaint case and the counter case is based on facts which has to be decided by the court and it cannot lead to an inference of malafide. A perusal of the complaint discloses the ingredients of the offence alleged. In absence of circumstances to hold prima facie that the complaint is frivolous, vexatious or oppressive there is no - 4 - justification for interference in this case. Accordingly, the application is dismissed. The order of stay dated 5.7.2007 is hereby vacated and a direction is issued to the court below to proceed with the trial. (Abhijit Sinha,J) Patna High Court, Patna. Dated: The 17th of October, 2008. Pradeep Srivastava/A.F.R.