Allahabad HC - Compromise Cannot Quash Cases Under Section 376 IPC and POCSO Act .

The Allahabad High Court has ruled that it is not legally permissible to quash a case under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on the basis of a compromise reached between the parties. The decision was made by Justice Ajai Kumar Srivastava while dealing with an application filed by the accused to quash the proceedings in a case registered under Sections 376, 363, 366, 504, 506 of the IPC and 3/4 of the POCSO Act.

The applicant's counsel, Sri Ajeet Kumar Yadav, argued that the case was false and that the accused had been falsely implicated. The victim, however, had supported the prosecution case in her statements recorded under Sections 161 and 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code. During the course of the criminal case, the parties had settled their dispute and the accused and the victim had married and were living happily together. The accused, therefore, sought to have the criminal proceeding quashed.

However, the Assistant Government Advocate argued that since the victim was a child at the time of the incident, no compromise between her and the accused was legally permissible. The High Court held that the criminal proceedings under Section 376 of the IPC and the POCSO Act could not be quashed on the basis of a compromise entered into between the accused and the victim. The bench referred to previous cases to support its decision, including Rathish Babu Unnikrishnan v. State (NCT of Delhi) and Satish Kumar Jatav v. State of U.P.

The High Court stated that the relief of quashing a complaint at a pre-trial stage should be granted sparingly, particularly when the factual controversy is still in the realm of possibility. The factual defence presented by the accused must be of an unimpeachable quality to disprove the allegations made in the complaint.

The court dismissed the applicant's application to quash the proceedings.

Pravin Kumar Singh v. State Of U.P.