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Availing Of Civil Remedy Is Not A Ground To Quash Criminal Proceedings

In CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.56 OF 2020, K. JAGADISH vs UDAYA KUMAR G.S., appeal was filed before the Supreme Court against the order of the Karnataka High Court.

In the complaint filed before the High Court, the appellant alleged that The crux of the complaint was that he was coerced to enter into a transaction by the accused. It was alleged that, no consideration was paid but three post-dated cheques aggregating to Rs.49.38 lakhs were handed over to the complainant and he was threatened that he must encash the cheques. Under such threat and coercion and since he was under surveillance, he deposited the first cheque amounting to Rs.15 lakhs on 12.07.2016 which was accordingly encashed and credited to his account.

The first of the other two cheques was due on 15.07.2016 which the appellant never deposited and on 17.07.2017 initiated the criminal proceedings submitting that he was coerced to enter into the transaction, as stated above. The second and third cheques were thus never encashed by the appellant and right from the first day the appellant had shown inclination to deposit the sum of Rs.15 lakhs received by way of encashment of the first cheque.

The criminal proceedings so launched by the appellant were, however, quashed by the High Court while entertaining a petition filed by the respondent No.1 herein under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It was observed by the High Court that since there was a Registered Sale Deed and if it was alleged by the appellant that the Sale Deed was not valid for any reason, it was for him to file a Civil Suit and have the appropriate relief granted in his favour in a manner known to law and therefore the criminal proceedings were required to be quashed.

On appeal, the Supreme Court observed that one of the striking features of the matter is that on the day when the Sale Deed was executed, not a single paisa was actually received by way of consideration. Three post-dated cheques were handed over to the appellant and one of those three cheques was deposited in the bank for encashment on the next date. It is a matter of record that subsequent cheques were not even sought to be encashed and the appellant showed his willingness to deposit even the sum of Rs.15 lakhs received by encashment of first cheque. Further, neither the conveyance deed was preceded by any agreement of sale nor any advertisement was issued by the appellant showing his inclination to dispose of the property in question. t is true that civil proceedings have been subsequently initiated to get the registered Sale Deed set-aside but that has nothing to do with the present criminal proceedings.

It is thus well settled that in certain cases the very same set of facts may give rise to remedies in civil as well as in criminal proceedings and even if a civil remedy is availed by a party, he is not precluded from setting in motion the proceedings in criminal law.

Referring to judgments in Pratibha Rani v. Suraj Kumar, Rajesh Bajaj v. State NCT of Delhi, Kamladevi Agarwal v. State of West Bengal, the Supreme Court held that the High Court had erred in their quashing the criminal proceedings. There are a large number of cases where criminal law and civil law can run side by side. The two remedies are not mutually exclusive but clearly coextensive and essentially differ in their content and consequence. The object of the criminal law is to punish an offender who commits an offence against a person, property or the State for which the accused, on proof of the offence, is deprived of his liberty and in some cases even his life. This does not, however, affect the civil remedies at all for suing the wrongdoer in cases like arson, accidents etc. It is an anathema to suppose that when a civil remedy is available, a criminal prosecution is completely barred. The two types of actions are quite different in content, scope and import.

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