Quashing of POCSO and Immoral Traffic Charges Permissible Under Section 528 BNSS Based on Voluntary Compromise

The petitioners (the mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law of Respondent No. 2) sought the quashing of FIR Crime No. 424/2022 registered at Police Station Purani Chhawani, Gwalior.

The FIR alleged serious offenses including Sections 370, 372, 373, 376(2)(n) of the IPC; Sections 3, 4, 5 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act; Sections 3, 4, 5 of the POCSO Act; and Sections 6, 9, 10, 11 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.

During the pendency of the case, the parties entered into a voluntary settlement/compromise.

The Principal Registrar of the High Court verified that the compromise was reached without threat or coercion.

1. Whether the High Court can exercise its inherent powers to quash criminal proceedings involving non-compoundable offenses on the basis of a compromise between the parties to prevent an abuse of the process of law.

The Court primarily exercised its inherent powers under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) [Note: analogous to Section 482 of the Cr.P.C.] to prevent the abuse of the process of law.

It relied on a catena of Supreme Court precedents, including Gian Singh v. State of Punjab (2012) and Narinder Singh v. State of Punjab (2014), which established that even in non-compoundable cases, criminal proceedings may be quashed if the dispute is personal/matrimonial in nature and a settlement renders the possibility of conviction remote.

The Court observed that the complainant (Respondent No. 2) had already settled the matter with her husband and was now willing to settle the dispute with the petitioners.

Upon perusing the verification report from the Principal Registrar, the Court was satisfied that the compromise was bona fide and voluntary.

The Court reasoned that since the parties had reached a settlement, continuation of the trial would be a "futile exercise" and a "wasteful exercise by the courts below" as the chances of conviction were negligible.

It emphasized that preserving the "bonhomie" created by the settlement and saving the court’s valuable time outweighed the technical nature of the offenses being non-compoundable.

The Court held that to preserve the resources and the settlement reached between the parties, it was in the interest of justice to permit the compounding of the offenses.