The Punjab and Haryana High Court in its recent judgement emphasised how it has become widespread practice to abuse the legal system by filing false FIRs in order to please one’s ego, resulting in the waste of public cash.
It ordered the complainant, who slapped the petitioner in public place, then filed an FIR to satisfy her ego, and subsequently compromised the case, to pay a stiff fine of Rs. 1,00,000 within a month.
The plea was filed seeking quashing of an FIR registered for outraging a woman’s modesty and other charges under Sections 323 and 354 of the IPC. On the basis of a settlement, the petitioner also sought that all subsequent procedures originating from the FIR be quashed.
Referring to a report by the Chief Judicial Magistrate stating that the compromise was voluntary, the court stated that a bare perusal of the FIR established that the two parties had amicably settled the dispute and that continuing criminal prosecution would be an exercise in futility because the chances of ultimate conviction were bleak.
Judge Alok Jain further noted how it has become a trend to exploit and abuse the legal system by filing fake FIRs, as in the current case, merely to satisfy one’s own ego.
Jain further called it “a fit case where appropriate action under law by invoking the provisions of Indian Penal Code, 1860, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and other related provisions against complaint deserves to be invoked so that such kind of false, frivolous and manipulated FIRs are not registered, which ultimately lead to wastage of time of the State Machinery, which is thrown into action.
“Ultimately, it is tax payer money that has been wasted as a result of the complainant’s false FIR,” the judge remarked.
