The High Court of Karnataka has said that trial courts cannot ignore the pendency of civil proceedings while assessing whether criminal prosecution is being used as a weapon of harassment, and are duty-bound to scrutinise, even at the stage of framing of charges, whether the evidence genuinely discloses a strong suspicion and a reasonable prospect of conviction.

“The criminal law cannot be permitted to degenerate into a weapon of oppression in aid of a civil contest,” the court said while citing the apex court’s observations that criminal law cannot be invoked against citizens, in the absence of legally tenable material, merely because a civil dispute subsists between the parties.

Property dispute

Justice M. Nagaprasanna made these observations while quashing the criminal cases against several persons and their advocate by the Bengaluru city police in connection with a complaint lodged against them in relation to a dispute over transactions of certain properties, the sale deeds of which were registered two decades ago.

A simmering land dispute between the parties has been artfully clothed in the robes of criminal prosecution in the complete absence of even an iota of criminality, the court said while pointing out that the criminal law cannot be permitted to degenerate into a weapon of oppression in aid of a civil contest.

Two filters

The criminal justice system, the court said, must operate through two filters — first, at the stage of investigation and filing of a chargesheet, and next, at the stage of framing of charge by the trial court. At both stages, the law vests ample power in trial courts to terminate proceedings that amount to abuse of process, subject always to the peculiar facts of each case. It cannot ignore the pendency of a civil dispute prior to the initiation of criminal proceedings, the court said.

Meanwhile, the court also expressed its deep disquiet over the increasingly disturbing trend in recent times of a plethora of cases in which advocates, who merely represent parties before courts of law in the discharge of their professional obligations, are themselves being dragged into criminal proceedings and arrayed as accused.

“If every advocate, merely by a reason of appearing for a litigant, is exposed to criminal prosecution and trauma of investigative proceedings, the inevitable consequence would be a chilling and paralysing effect upon fearless discharge of professional responsibilities,” the court said.

The court also observed that “the majesty of the legal profession cannot be permitted to be diminished by disgruntled litigants to wield criminal law as a weapon of intimidation against the members of the Bar.”