Complaint Should Be Quashed If No Offence Made Out-Supreme Court

The Supreme Court reaffirmed that a criminal complaint must be cancelled if a comprehensive review of the complaint reveals no evidence of an offence.

The bench made up of Justices Indira Banerjee and V. Ramasubramanian noted that it was not conceivable to expand the scope of his complaint by simply adding the terminology used in the Indian Penal Code because the complaint itself only indicated a broken commercial relationship.

In this instance, the police issued a FIR under Sections 406, 420, 408, 460, 471, 384, 193, 196 read with Section 120B IPC after the complainant filed a private complaint under Section 200 Cr.P.C., which was referred to the police by the court under Section 156(3) CrPC. The accused filed an appeal under Section 482 CrPC with the High Court to have the FIR quashed, but it was denied.

The following arguments were made before the Apex Court bench: I the complaint filed does not disclose the commission of any offence; (ii) the complaint was only a counterblast to the civil suit filed by appellant No.1 and a criminal complaint lodged by the appellants against respondent No.2; and (iii) the High Court overlooked the pendency of an application for bringing on record the chargesheet and for including a prayer for quashing of the chargesheet.

The court said, "It is not possible to broaden the scope of his complaint by merely adding the phrase used in the text of the Indian Penal Code," given that the complaint itself only revealed the breakdown of a business connection.