MADURAI: Observing that the high court cannot use its inherent power to conduct a mini-trial and decide the innocence or guilt of an accused, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently dismissed a petition filed by a man seeking to quash a cheating case registered against him by the Pudukkottai district crime branch in 2017.
The petitioner, S Saravanaperumal, was booked on charges that he obtained Rs 7.5 lakh from the complainant promising to arrange an overseas job for her son, but he neither arranged the job nor returned the amount.
However, Saravanaperumal claimed that he himself is a victim, as he has forwarded the money to Balabhaskaran, who later cheated him off the amount. He also added that he had lodged a separate complaint in this regard and the police have filed a final report against Balabhaskaran.
He further stated that while a few similarly placed persons, who had also collected money like him, were named as witnesses, he was arrayed as an accused, and requested the court to quash the case pending against him before a magistrate court in Pudukkottai by treating him as one of the witnesses.
The government counsel contended that Saravanaperumal had collected money from several persons by making similar promises and the total amount collected by him was nearly Rs 24 lakh. When he has obtained money by making such promises, he cannot escape the criminal liability by citing that he subsequently transferred the amount to another person, he added.
The petitioner also stated that Balabhaskaran died two months before the filing of chargesheet, but the government counsel explained that the police came to know about his death only after filing the chargesheet. Hearing both sides, Justice L Victoria Gowri observed,
“A person may describe himself as an intermediary, victim, agent, facilitator or conduit. But when the allegation is that he directly received money from a complainant on a promise to secure employment abroad, the Court cannot, at the threshold, close the prosecution merely because he asserts that he was cheated by another person in the chain.”
The inherent jurisdiction of this Court is meant to protect the innocent from baseless prosecution. It is not meant to short-circuit a prosecution, the judge added and dismissed the petition.
