1. S. A. RAHMAN, J.-This order will dispose of two Criminal Appeals Nos, 36 and 37 of 1967, which arise out of an order, passed by the High Court of West Pakistan, under section 561-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, by which criminal proceedings, pending against the respondents in the two appeals, started at the instance of Raja Haq Nawaz, were quashed.
2. The facts leading up to these appeals areas follows. On the 17th of August 1965, the appellant's father filed a complaint at Jhelum under sections 3'I9, 448 and 427, Pakistan Penal Code, against some or all the respondents. The learned Magistrate dismissed it on the 21st October 1965, on the ground that the dispute involved was of a civil nature and was not amenable to criminal jurisdiction. On the 12th of March 1966, the appellant filed a complaint at Karachi against the respondents under sections .420 and 406, Pakistan Penal Code, and this was followed by another complaint under sections 452, 147 and 506,, Pakistan Penal Code, again lodged at Karachi, against the respondents. It may be mentioned that the parties belong to a village in the district of Jhelum, but the appellant is employed as a foot constable at Karachi.
3. The allegations in the first complaint at Karachi were that the respondents had come and met Haq Nawaz, appellant, at Karachi, and had given him to understand that his father was in great need of money. The appellant asserted that he borrowed a sum of Rs. 500 from some other person and handed it over to the respondents on the 2tst July 1965. As the appellant heard nothing from his father about the receipt of the money, he wrote a letter to him, and learnt that no money had been passed on to his father. The money having been paid in July 1965, according to the allegations, the complaint itself was lodged on the 12th of March 1966. The second complaint was presented in a Karachi Court on the 25th March 1966, and it was alleged therein that, on learning of the filing of the first complaint at Karachi, the respon--dents reached there on the 20th of March 1966, and demanded that Haq Nawaz should withdraw his case. He declined to do so and on this, the respondents are said to have committed house-- trespass and resorted to intimidation by threats at the appellant's residence in Karachi.
4. The respondents approached the High Court at Lahore, and the learned Chief Justice, after hearing the parties quashed both the proceedings, pending at Karachi, on the ground that the first complaint was merely a counterblast to failure of the appellant's father's complaint at Jhelum and that the story of the payment of Rs. 500 to the respondents, after litigation had started between them and the appellant's father was unbelievable. The delay in lodging the complaint was also taken into consideration in this context. With regard to the second complaint, it was held that the accused-respondents could not have learnt so quickly of the lodging of the complaint at Karachi against them, on the 12th of March 1956, so as to reach there on the 20th of March. The story that they should have travelled expressly to Karachi for the purpose of compelling the appellant to withdraw his complaint, was disbelieved as highly improbable. It was also noted that, according to the certificate produced before the learned Chief Justice, Subedar Sakhi Muhammad, one of the respondents, was attending a Union Council meeting in Jhelum District, on the 20th March 1956.
5. The learned Chief Justice observed that the complaints were merely brought to harass the accused-respondents and amounted to abuse of the process of Court.
6. Special leave to appeal was granted to the appellant in both these cases, as it was urged that the complaint at Jhelum was not pending when the act of cheating took place at Karachi and the date when the appellant wrote a letter to his father was still to be established by evidence. It was further contended that for disbelieving allegations of house-trespass and intimidation, no adequate grounds existed and the plea of alibi based on a docu--ment, produced in the High Court, could only have been evaluated correctly, after a trial.
7. We have heard Mr. Saeed Hasan Malik, in support of these appeals. The father of the appellant was in attendance before us, at the time of the hearing, and some interesting admissions were made by him when he was questioned by the learned counsel for the appellant himself, at our instance.
8. He first stated that the incident at Jhelum, which led to a complaint being lodged against the respondents, happened after the respondents had induced his son to part with money at Karachi, on a false representation and that he was aware of this fact. In a way, he suggested that the incident at Jhelum was the off-shoot of the demand of the money from the accused persons, which they were said to have brought from Karachi for the father. When, however, we perused a copy of the complaint filed at Jhelum, which was placed before us by the learned counsel for the appellant, we discovered that there was not the least reference in it to the allegation that the respondents had brought any money, on false representation, for the appellant. This omission is extremely significant. Realising his mistake, the appellant's father tried to wriggle out of his admissions before us and suggested that, in fact, he had not known of the incident at Karachi when he lodged his own complaint at Jhelum. Considering that the money is claimed to have changed hands at Karachi in July 1965, while the complaint at Jhelum was presented in Court on the 17th August 1965, it is difficult to believe that during the interval between these two dates, the father and son did not correspond with each other and that the father should have remained ignorant of the handing over of the money by his son to the respondents when he lodged his complaint. In the normal course of human conduct one should have expected the appellant to have informed his father at Jhelum by a letter that he had handed over money, for him to the respondents. Indeed why he should have handed over money to the respondents, on a mere oral representation on behalf of his father, is difficult to understand.The father could have sent a letter direct to the appellant or at least sent a note through the respondents making a request for money. Then again, the father, on coming to know of the situa--tion, could have brought a complaint at Jhelum itself, under section 406, Pakistan Penal Code, against the respondents, on account of their failure to pay the money to him. Looking at the facts in their proper perspective, it seems to us that the learned Chief Justice came to the correct conclusion in holding that the first complaint at Karachi was brought merely by way of counter blast when the father's complaint against the respondents failed at Jhelum. The appellant probably took advantage of his position as a foot constable at Karachi to resort to this harassing process against the respondents. It is impossible to believe that the respondents should have been handed over any money by the appellant at Karachi, without a receipt. It was easy. For the appellant to assert that the money had changed hands at Karachi before the incident at Jhelum as there was no documentary check possible. The circumstances brought out give ample countenance to the contention raised, on behalf of the respondents, that a false complaint had been brought at Karachi merely in order to harass them.
9. It also appears to us that the learned Chief Justice has given good reasons for holding the second complaint brought at Karachi was also false. On the face of it, it looks extremely unreasonable that several of the respondents, should have travelled all the way to Karachi, thus incurring considerable expenditure, in order to avoid payment of the sum of Rs. 500 to the father of the appellant. The object of their visit, according to the appellant, was merely to deter him from pursuing his complaint at Karachi. The second complaint was in all probability, another attempt to manufacture a case against the respondents in order to subject them to the harassment of an expensive trial at a place far off from their own village. The improbability of the respondents having come to know of the lodging of the first complaint against them at Karachi, within the short interval of about a week, is also a pointer in the same direction. It was easy for the appellant to use his influence and put up false oral witnesses at Karachi in order to get the respondents summoned.
10. The allegations made by the appellant in his two complaints contain intrinsic indications of their falsity and the charges made were in all probability groundless. We are, therefore, satisfied that, having regard to the facts and circumstances, the conclusion reached by the learned Chief Justice was correct in both these cases.
11. Normally, of course, every case should be allowed to proceed according to law, and resort to the provisions of section 561-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure should not be lightly made, as this would circumvent the due process of law. This was the; principle laid down by this Court in Ghulam Muhammad v. Muzammal Khan (PLD 1967SC317) on which Mr. Saeed Hasan Malik relies. The reported case is, however, distinguishable on the facts from the instant case. Each case must be judged on its own special facts and circumstances. The learned counsel for the appellant conceded that there was power vested in the High Court to quash criminal proceedings, if it was satisfied that a false complaint had been brought and the process of Court was, therefore, being abused, not to advance the interests of justice but to subject the accused persons to unnecessary harassm ent. We are convinced that the present cases are of that nature and, consequently, the order passed by the learned Chief Justice requires no interference by this Court. Both the appeals are hereby dismissed.