Courts cannot act as recovery agents for collection of money: SC

New Delhi, Sep 23 (PTI) The Supreme Court has observed that courts cannot act as recovery agents and deprecated the trend of turning civil disputes into criminal cases by parties in dispute.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh, while observing that threat of arrest cannot be leveraged for recovery of outstanding amounts, said this is a trend of recent times, where parties lodge criminal cases to recover money, which is a purely a civil dispute.

These observations were made by the apex court on Monday in a criminal case arising in Uttar Pradesh, where the bench noted that kidnapping charges were alleged against an individual, in a dispute over recovery of money.

Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, pointed to a rise in such complaints and said in cases like this police are stuck in the middle as if it does not register the case where cognisable offence is alleged to be made out, the court pulls it up and if it registers, then it is alleged to be acting in bias and not following due process of law.

He said normally in these complaints, a criminal offence is alleged to be made out in a dispute for recovery of money.

Justice Kant said it understands the predicament of the police and noted that if a FIR is not registered where it is alleged that cognisable offence is made out, the police is pulled up for not following the 2013 Lalita Kumar judgement of the apex court.

The bench, while advising the police to apply its mind to see whether it is a civil or criminal case, before arresting a person, said that such misuse of the criminal law is posing a serious threat to the justice delivery system.

Justice Kant said, "Courts are not recovery agents for the parties to recover outstanding amounts. This misuse of the judicial system cannot be allowed." The top court suggested to Nataraj that states can appoint a nodal officer for each district, preferably a retired district judge, who could be consulted by police to know whether it is a civil or criminal offence and thereafter proceed in accordance with law.

The bench asked Nataraj to seek instruction and apprise the court in two weeks.

The top court has been recently time and again flagging the recent trend of parties lodging criminal cases in civil disputes for expeditious disposal of their grievances. PTI MNL MNL DV DV