Crl.A. No. 002211 / 2014

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Under Section 482 CrPC, the High Court's inherent power to quash criminal proceedings should be exercised sparingly — only where the complaint discloses no offence, or is frivolous, vexatious, or oppressive — and not to conduct a parallel trial or pre-empt the trial court's findings on disputed facts. Where a complaint, read as a whole alongside the complainant's sworn statement, prima facie discloses ingredients of the alleged offence under Section 499 IPC, interference at the pre-trial stage is unwarranted. This analysis, summarised on casestatus.in, further affirms that defences going to authorship or knowledge of an allegedly defamatory publication are properly adjudicated by the trial court, not during quashing proceedings.