The Delhi High Court has recently quashed the proceedings in two criminal cases registered against two families engaged in a dispute over a trivial matter.
The court imposed a social punishment stating that the parties shall plant saplings and take care of those for a period of 5 years.
These cases involved allegations of various offenses, such as voluntarily causing hurt, house trespass after preparation for hurt, wrongful restraint or assault, criminal intimidation, and an attempt to commit culpable homicide.
Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma stated, “However, I consider that the negative energy of the parties should be put to an end by directing them to contribute to society. Hence, the petitioners in both cases are directed to plant 200 trees each in their areas. The place shall be identified by the investigating officer after consultation with the horticulture department and he shall inform the petitioners 15 days in advance.”
In addition, the court tasked the investigating officer to explore the possibility of geo-tagging the planted saplings for effective monitoring by the appropriate authority.
It has called for a compliance report on the matter in November.
Regarding the first FIR, the complainant recounted an incident that occurred on March 4, 2017, when 3 members of a family visited his house seeking identification documents to receive blankets, which were to be distributed by the political party candidate.
However, the complainant stated that the three were political supporters of another political party led to a verbal dispute or a fight.
Further, in another FIR it was alleged by the opposition side that while collecting IDs for distributing blankets, another family picked up a quarrel and certainly beat them.
Therefore, in January, both the parties arrived at a settlement and told court that they had settled matter without any fear and coercion.
