Jaipur: Rajasthan High Court has quashed a rape and POCSO case after the accused and the complainant settled their differences and married each other, observing that continuation of the criminal proceedings would serve no useful purpose in the peculiar facts of the case.A single bench of Justice Anil Kumar Upman passed the order following a petition seeking quashing of an FIR registered at Bajaj Nagar police station, Jaipur City (East), under the provisions of the IPC and POCSO Act.The petitioner’s counsel, Gaurav Sharma, submitted that the parties had entered into an amicable settlement and that the complainant had executed an affidavit on Aug 18. “The accused and the complainant had married on June 20, 2026, as she had attained the age for marriage,” he said.The complainant, through her counsel, did not oppose the petition and said she had no objection to the FIR being quashed on the basis of the settlement. The public prosecutor opposed the petition.“Courts must exercise extreme caution while considering compromises in serious offences such as rape, murder and dacoity, as such crimes are generally offences against society and cannot ordinarily be treated as private disputes. However, this principle is not absolute,” the court held.It held that the high court can exercise its inherent powers to quash criminal proceedings in appropriate cases where the dispute is essentially personal in nature, the possibility of conviction is remote and continuation of the proceedings would serve no meaningful purpose.In the present case, the court noted that the parties had settled their differences and married, indicating that the “substratum of the dispute no longer exists”. It also observed that the FIR indicated that their relationship had earlier been cordial, supporting the conclusion that the dispute was personal in nature.The court further noted that after the compromise, the complainant was unlikely to support the prosecution during trial, making the prospects of a successful prosecution “bleak and remote”.Relying on Supreme Court precedents, High Court concluded that the case warranted quashing and accordingly set aside the FIR.
