Once the prosecutrix herself agreed that she was not abducted by the accused and co-accused and there was failure on the part of petitioner to appear before the court despite of repeated summons, the filing of closure report by the Investigating Officer is totally valid. The aforesaid has been established by the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Jammu while adjudicating the case of Mohd. Shawl Khan v. State of J&K and others [ CRMC No. 389/2014] which was decided by the single judge bench comprising Justice Rajnesh Oswal on 6th August 2021.
The acts of the case are as follows. Petitioner herein lodged FIR bearing No. 5/2012 with Police Station, Bahu Fort, Jammu for commission of offence under section 366 RPC and during the course of investigation, the statement of the missing girl was also recorded under section 164-A Cr.P.C by the court of learned 2nd Additional Munsiff, Jammu on 21.12.2012 and in her statement, she has never deposed that she was ever abducted by accused, namely, Parmeet Singh. After recording the statement of the girl, the closure report was filed, that also contains statement of the petitioner recorded under section 161 Cr.P.C. When a girl herself made a statement that she was never abducted then only option before the Investigating Officer was to file closure. he petitioner had sought quashing of the Closure report as well as order dated 25.03.2013 passed by the learned Special Municipal Mobile Magistrate, Jammu only on the ground that the petitioner was not served with a notice by the learned Special Municipal Mobile Magistrate, Jammu before accepting the Closure report.
The court perused the facts and arguments presented. It was of the opinion that “The petitioner herein has not been able to demonstrate as how the order passed by the learned Special Municipal Mobile Magistrate, Jammu is bad in eye of law, particularly when the prosecutrix herself has stated that she was never abducted by the accused as well as co-accused and also even otherwise, assuming the contention of the petitioner is to be true that he was not aware about the filing the closure report, even in that case, it would not make any difference as once the prosecutrix i.e. missing girl, who herself stated that she was not abducted, the Investigating Officer was under obligation to close the said FIR as not admitted and file the closure report.”
