The listing of around 1,250 First Information Report (FIR) quash petitions before Justice G. Jayachandran of the Madras High Court on Wednesday created anxiety among lawyers who feared that the judge had decided to dismiss all of them en masse by citing the Supreme Court’s verdict in Neeharika Infrastructure Pvt Ltd Versus State of Maharashtra (2021).
Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTNP) members R.C. Paul Kanagaraj and K. Balu made a mention before the judge, on behalf of the Bar, early in the day and expressed their apprehensions. They requested the judge to look into each petition individually since the facts differed from case to case and take a call accordingly.
However, the judge told the lawyers that their apprehensions were baseless and that he was not going to dismiss the petitions en masse. He clarified that all petitions were listed for hearing in order to find out how many of them fit into the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court for seeking the relief of quashing FIRs and how many do not fall under those parameters.
The judge also told the Bar members that nearly two lakh FIRs were pending before the police stations across the State. In many cases, the investigation had not progressed just because of the pending petitions to quash the FIRs. “Even if there is no stay, the policemen cite the pending FIR quash petition number and keep the FIRs pending for years together,” he said.
Therefore, he directed the Government Advocate (criminal side) to submit a list of cases, from among the 1,250 petitions, in which the FIRs had either been closed by the police and those in which investigation had been completed and the final reports had been filed before the lower courts concerned. Those petitions could be closed after recording the progress, he said.
Similarly, he asked the lawyers who had filed the 1,200 petitions to withdraw their cases if they do not fall within the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court. “Only those who feel that their cases fall within the parameters can argue their matters but this court will impose costs if it finds that the petitions are frivolous,” the judge said and adjourned the cases to October 18.
