Multiple FIRs for same occurrence impermissible: High Court

Srinagar, May 16: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has quashed an FIR registered in Central Kashmir’s Budgam against a Delhi-based whistleblower, holding that the criminal proceedings initiated by a real estate company amounted to “forum shopping” and an abuse of the judicial process.

Emphasising that multiple FIRs for the same occurrence is not permissible under law, a Bench of Justice M A Chowdhary set aside Special Mobile Magistrate, Budgam’s order dated November 1, 2021, that had directed registration of FIR No 327/2021 under sections 469 (Forgery intended to harm reputation) and 505(II) (statements conducing to public mischief) of IPC against petitioner, Vishvendra Singh.

Vishvendra had approached the High Court and questioned the FIR lodged at Police Station Budgam by WTC Faridabad Infrastructure, alleging that the company had initiated multiple criminal proceedings in Srinagar, Budgam, and New Delhi over the same allegations relating to a social media campaign.

The petitioner’s claim was that he had exposed an alleged real estate scam involving the WTC group and had filed complaints against the company before the authorities in Delhi.

In retaliation, the company pursued parallel criminal proceedings against him on identical facts, he alleged.

While dealing with Vishvendra’s plea, the court noted that the company had first obtained a summoning order from the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Srinagar, on October 7, 2021, and thereafter approached the Budgam court seeking registration of another case on the same allegations without disclosing the earlier proceedings.

Underscoring that the conduct of the company reflected a “deeply concerning pattern of non-disclosure”, the court held that concealment of earlier proceedings from another court amounted to “fraud on the court and a gross abuse of the judicial process.”

Moreover, the court pointed out that initiating proceedings in multiple jurisdictions over a single alleged Twitter trend was a “textbook example of forum shopping” aimed at harassing the petitioner and exhausting his resources.

In response to the contention that different offences under the IPC justified separate proceedings, the court held that offences arising out of the same occurrence cannot be split into multiple complaints before different forums.

The court ruled that the facts of the same occurrence cannot be allowed to be broken into pieces so as to file multiple complaints.

“All the offences arising out of the same occurrence are to be investigated and tried together, is the scheme of criminal law,” it said

Both the complaints filed firstly at Srinagar on October 7, 2021 and then at Budgam on October 13, 2021, relate to the same occurrence of some proxy twitter trend “Anti India WTC-TALIBAN ACT” alleged to have been initiated on September 12, 2021, at 10 am by the petitioner against the function organised by the complainant at Humhama on the outskirts of Srinagar City of J&K under the theme of “Make in India/Digital India/Start Up India” on August 18, 2021.

Noting that both the complaints were carbon copy of each other, the court said that the complainant could have asked for proceeding for the commission of all the offences in its first complaint at Srinagar.

“Splitting of the different offences arising out of the same set of facts is precluded before different forums,” it said.

The court reiterated that there could not be multiple FIRs regarding the same occurrence and that all allegations must form part of a single investigation.

With the conclusion that continuation of the Budgam FIR would be a “travesty of justice”, the Court quashed the FIR along with all consequential proceedings.