Concealing facts in successive bail plea fraud on court: Punjab and Haryana HC

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that concealment of facts while filing a successive bail application amounts to playing fraud on the court, while holding that suppression of the dismissal of an earlier bail plea on merits “pollutes the stream of administration of justice.”

Justice Namit Kumar made the observation while dismissing a second petition filed an accused in a rape case registered under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act at the Balongi police station in Mohali in July last year.

The court found “an active concealment and suppression of material facts” on the petitioner’s part. He “conspicuously” remained silent and deliberately chose not to enclose order showing dismissal of his previous bail application on merits.

The Court referred to the petitioner’s submission that the initial bail application was dismissed as withdrawn with a liberty to file fresh one. Since the order was not enclosed, its copy was procured and is taken on record. “A perusal thereof shows that the earlier regular bail application in the FIR in question was not ‘dismissed as withdrawn’ rather the same was ‘dismissed on merits’ by a Co-ordinate Bench,” Justice Kumar asserted.

“It smells that such suppression of material facts, which are necessary for adjudication of the present petition, appears to have been done just for the obvious reason that this Court may be refrained from examining whether there exists any change in circumstance,” he recorded.

Referring further to the principle that courts could not be misled by distorted pleadings, the Bench invoked the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case which held that suppression or concealment of material facts “is not advocacy but jugglery, manipulation or misrepresentation, which has no place in equitable and prerogative jurisdiction.”

Justice Kumar asserted the Court had no hesitation to say that an attempt was made with an oblique motive to deceive the Court and pollute the stream of administration of justice.

“Any person who takes recourse to the method of suppression in a court of law by not disclosing all the material facts fairly and truly and states them in a distorted manner either by way of manipulation, maneuvering or misrepresentation to mislead the court, is, in actuality, playing fraud with the court. In such cases, the maxim `supressio very, expression fiaisi’ –– suppression of the truth is equivalent to the expression of falsehood –– gets attracted in which the Court has inherent power to prevent an abuse of its process of law… and refuse to proceed further with examination of the case on merits,” the Court observed.

Holding that the petitioner had approached the court with soiled hands, Justice Kumar dismissed the petition “at the very threshold.”

Chandigarh