Allahabad High Court: A Division Bench comprising of Karuna Nand Bajpayee and Ifaqat Ali Khan, JJ., dismissed a petition on the ground that the contentions raised by the petitioners’ counsel were related to disputed questions of fact.
The Court had been called upon to adjudge the worth of prosecution allegations and evaluate the same on the basis of various intricacies of factual details. The veracity and credibility of the indictment was questioned, the absence of material which would substantiate the allegations that were contended and false implication was pleaded.
The High Court dismissing this petition held that only a prima facie satisfaction of the court about the existence of sufficient ingredients constituting the offence is required in order to see whether the FIR required to be investigated or deserves quashing. The ambit of the investigation into the alleged offence is an independent area of operation and does not call for interference in the same except in rarest of rare cases. Further, it stated that the operational liberty to collect sufficient material cannot be scuttled prematurely by any uncalled for overstepping of the Court. It has to be an extremely discreet exercise. Call for determination on pure questions of fact should be adequately discerned either through proper investigation or should be adjudicated upon only by the trial court and even the submissions made on points of law can also be more appropriately gone into only by the trial court in case a charge sheet is submitted. The Court did not deem it proper to have a pre-trial before the actual trial begun. The FIR was thus not quashed. [Seraj Ahamad v. State of U.P., 2019 SCC OnLine All 23, Order dated 08-01-2019]
