The Supreme Court has said that the “law is sacrosanct entity” that exists to serve the ends of justice and courts must always ensure that frivolous cases do not pervert the sacrosanct nature of the law.
It also said that the law is meant to exist as a shield to protect the innocent, rather than it being used as a sword to threaten them. A bench of Justices Krishna Murari and S Ravindra Bhat said that while it is true that the quashing of a criminal complaint must be done only in the rarest of rare cases, it is still the duty of the High Court to look into each and every case with great detail “to prevent miscarriage of justice”.
“The law is a sacrosanct entity that exists to serve the ends of justice, and the courts, as protectors of the law and servants of the law, must always ensure that frivolous cases do not pervert the sacrosanct nature of the law,” the apex court said in its verdict.
“At the cost of repetition, we again state that the purpose of filing a complaint and initiating criminal proceedings must exist solely to meet the ends of justice, and the law must not be used as a tool to harass the accused. The law is meant to exist as a shield to protect the innocent, rather than it being used as a sword to threaten them.
The remarks of the apex court came as it quashed the criminal proceedings pending at a Chennai court against two people.
The judgement came on an appeal against the August last year verdict of the Madras High Court which had dismissed a plea seeking the quashing of a criminal complaint regarding alleged contravention of the provision of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
The Supreme Court noted there was a gap of over four years between the initial investigation and filing of the complaint, and even after the lapse of a substantial amount of time, no evidence was provided to sustain the claims in the complaint.
The investigating authority has provided no explanation for the extraordinary delay of more than four years between the initial site inspection, the show cause notice, and the complaint, said the bench, adding that in fact, the absence of such an explanation only prompts the court to infer some “sinister motive” behind initiating the criminal proceedings.
The top court said while inordinate delay in itself may not be a ground for quashing a criminal complaint, “unexplained inordinate delay of such length must be taken into consideration as a very crucial factor as grounds for quashing it”.
While this court does not expect a full-blown investigation at the stage of a criminal complaint, however, in such cases where the accused has been subjected to the anxiety of a potential initiation of criminal proceedings for such a length of time, it is only reasonable for the court to expect bare-minimum evidence from the investigating authorities, said the apex court.