BARKAT HAYAT vs STATE through Additional Advocate-General Peshawar

' MUHAMMAD YOUNIS THAHEEM, J.---The petitioner Barkat Hayat, by invoking the inherent jurisdiction of this Court under section 561-A, Cr.P.C. Has challenged the judgments/orders of the fora below, whereby his application for sine die adjournment of criminal case bearing FIR No, 69 dated 18.4.2014 under section 489-F, P.P.C. Registered at PS Sakhakot, District Malakand till the disposal of civil suit titled as "Hidayatullah v. Barkat Hayat" was concurrently dismissed.

2. Brief facts of the case are that petitioner sold a piece of land to respondent No, 2 Hidayatullah vide deed dated 19.2.2014 and both the parties agreed that the payment will be made through installments, so, in this respect, the respondent No, 2 issued three cheques to the petitioner, out of which two cheques were honored by the concerned bank and petitioner received the amount, while the last cheque amounting to Rs, 53 lac was bounced back due to insufficient funds in the account and later on, on the basis of said cheque, the petitioner lodged FIR under section 489-F, P.P.C. Against the respondent No, 2, wherein after investigation, the local police submitted challan against the accused and the case was put in Court for trial before the learned Magistrate concerned. In the meanwhile, the respondent No, 2, accused in the above-referred criminal case, filed civil suit of specific performance of agreement against the petitioner, which is currently pending adjudication in the Court of Civil Judge Dargai. The petitioner moved an application for sine die adjournment of the criminal case registered vide FIR No, 69 till the disposal of the civil suit as common question of law is involved in both the cases, which was dismissed by the by learned Civil Judge/Judicial Magistrate, Dargai on 17.3.2015. Feeling aggrieved, the petitioner filed criminal revision before the learned Additional Session/Izafi Zila Qazi, Malakand at Dargai, which also met the same vide impugned judgment dated 26.8.2015, hence instant quashment petition.

3. Arguments of learned counsel for the parties heard and record perused.

4. It appears from the record that on the one hand petitioner lodged FIR against the respondent No, 2 in respect of issuance of bogus cheque within the meaning of section 489-F, P.P.C., whereas on the other hand, the respondent/plaintiff filed a civil suit of decree of specific performance of agreement against the petitioner, so, as per law, there is no provision that both the cases could not be put to trial at the same time, therefore, the request of sine die adjournment of the criminal case on behalf of petitioner till disposal of civil suit has been rightly and correctly disallowed by both the learned for a below through their the impugned judgments/orders, to which no exception could be made out. In this respect reliance is placed on the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court titled as "Seema Afreed and others v. The State and another" (2008 SCM R 839), wherein their Lordships held as under:- "Criminal case must be allowed to proceed on its own merits and merely because civil proceedings relating to same transaction had been instituted, it had never been considered to be a legal bar to the maintainability of criminal proceedings which could proceed concurrently because conviction for a criminal offence was altogether a different matter from the civil liability."

5. Even otherwise, learned counsel for the petitioner failed to point-out any section of law either in Criminal Procedure Code or in Civil Procedure Code vide which the application of petitioner for sine die adjournment of criminal case could be taken into consideration, rather in contrary, both the matters are different entities in its own sphere of domain, so, could be put to trial separately at the same time.

6. In view of the instant petition being devoid of merits stands dismissed.