- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decided
- 7 November 1986
- Bench
- P. N. Bhagwati, Ranganath Misra
- Result
- Appeals allowed.
Headnote
Constitution of India, Article 136-Special Leave-Granted-Charges· quashed-Reasons-Offences committed more than six years ago by a trader in the lowest rung, of hierarchy-Extremely doubtful whether trial would end in conviction.
T'· HELD: I. The fact that the offences, if any, are alleged to have
been committed more than six years ago .and the appellant was merely a trader at the lowest ning of the hierarchy in the Foreign Exchange Division of· the Bank and not a highly placed officer and the trial is bound to occupy the time of the court of first instance for not less than two or three years in view of the complicated nature of the ca8e and even then, it is extremely doubtful whether it will at all result in conviction no useful purpose will be sened by allowing the· proseclitions to continue. [U-174A]
However, if the Bank has any legitimate claim against the appel-lant, it will be open to the Bank to pursue any civil remedies which may be available to it. [174B]
Headnote as published in the Digital Supreme Court Reports by the Supreme Court of India. Paragraph references point to the judgment below.
Judgment
1 MISRA, J. Special leave granted.
We have carefully considered the various aspects of the case and .r-we are of the view that having regard to the nature of the dispute and
the fact that the offences, if any, are alleged to have been committed more than six years ago and the appellant was merely a trader at the lowest rung of the hierarchy in the Foreign Exchange Division of the Bank and not a highly placed officer and the trial is bound to occupy the time of the court of first instance for not less that two or three years in view of the complicated nature of the case and even then, it is extremely doubtful whether it will at all result in conviction, no useful purpose will be served by allowing the prosecutions to continue. Hence, we allow the appeals and quash the charges against the appel-lant. We may, however, make it clear that if the Bank has any legiti-mate claim against the appellant, it will be open to the Bank to pursue any civil remedies which may be available to it.
Case details
Arising from
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Cnininal Appeal NOS. 563-64 of 1986
From the Judgment and Order dated 30. 9.85 in the High Court of Delhi at New Delhi in Crl. M.(M) Nos. ll05 & 1106 of 1985.
Appearances
M. R. Shanna and Dalveer Bhandari for the Appellant.
Source: Supreme Court of India, Digital Supreme Court Reports, via the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open dataset (CC BY 4.0). Text was extracted from the official PDF and may contain conversion errors. Check the official PDF before relying on it.