The Civil or criminal offering two different set of remedies for different behavior. For prosecutors, this dichotomy is drives home at the beginning of their legal training by the division of law school curriculum in civil and criminal categories. A legal wrong occurs when legal interest, right protected by the law which are infringed. When persons rights infringed addicted his or her individual right, a civil wring will occur but when there is any violation of public interest which cause to public it is categorized as a crime.
A complainant has to decide appropriate way to seek a remedy in accordance with the form of dispute whether it is a civil or criminal. The prosecutor officer and police departments have been making use of civil remedies to address criminal behavior. Their jurisdiction mean to concluded that civil remedies can be easier to use then criminal sanctions for certain types of crime because they often do not need victims to testify, it can provide immediate relief for instance, through injunctions and restraining orders and avoid the need for a labor-intensive criminal and or civil trial. Civil remedies can also be more effective to prevent crime then criminal penalties due to more frequently involve the classical crime deterrent tail of swiftness, certainty or severity.
Last few years has witnessed a significant hike in a number of frivolous criminal complaints being filed to settle civil disputes. Majority of civil disputes related to family inheritance, partitions, property will execution, disputes between two parties. The general tendency is to lodge a criminal complaint against the opposite party in addition to filing of civil suits or limitation of arbitration proceedings. This mechanism of settling civil disputes has been increasingly used for recovered alleged outstanding amount payable by one party to another in the course of business transaction bound by contracts. The delay in adjudication of civil disputes has led to converting civil disputes into criminal cases.
There have been constitutional challenges in civil disputes or their implementations in all. It is important to pay careful attention to the issue of double jeopardy whenever civil litigation against a respondent is contemplated in conjunction with a parallel criminal prosecution of the same individual for the same offence. One constitutional law expert has written that, there are many potent constitutionals generates, such as the due process clause, that apply to all civil matters. Despite lying down separate procedure, complainant intended to file criminal complaint in civil matter for expediting the civil recovery process. Try to achieve by coloring the civil disputes as a criminal proceeding and escalating the seriousness of the offences. This practice giving civil disputes a clock of criminal offence is a vexatious and oppressive litigation. This concern was highlighted in Indian Oil Corporation Vs. NEPC India Ltd. & others(�Indian Oil Case�) where the Hon�ble Supreme Court observed that there is a growing tendency in business circles to convert their civil disputes into criminal. This is mainly owing to the existing perception that civil law remedies are time consuming and are insufficient to protect the interest of the lenders. The Supreme Court condemned this practice and recommended that this practice of misleading the court and manipulating the nature of dispute should be forbidden by the Courts. The complainant should not be allowed to exploit the judicial proceedings for settling scores or unduly harassing the accused to get favorable result. In another case Anand Kumar Mohatta&anr. Vs. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi) the Hon�ble Supreme Court dealt with a case where disputes were of civil nature but a criminal case was filed. The Apex Court observed that the case was for recovery of money, however, the complainant directly filed the criminal complaint without taking any other steps of recovering the amount. This clearly points towards malafide intentions of the complainant.
As per the decision of LalitKumari Vs. Govt. of UP the Apex Court directed to if the primary information received does not disclose a cognizable offence but indicated for an inquiry a primary inquiry may be conducted only to ascertain whether a cognizable offence is disclosed or not specially cases in which Matrimonial /family disputes, commercial offences, Medical negligence cases, Corruption cases. There are some other compounding offences under the Code of Criminal Procedure as well as Negotiable Instrument Act. So far as offences under sec. 138 of the NI Act are concerned the legislature has provided section 147 which specifically stipulated that every offence punishable under this act shall be compoundable. This section contains a non-obstante provision therefore irrespective of and apart from the offences stipulated under section 320 of the CRPC a reference can usefully be made to certain pronouncement under the Code of Civil Procedure has provided Rule 3 of Order XXIII, which specifically provided for �Compromise of Suits�. The many courts observes while the CPC would have no application to the proceedings which are guided by the CrPC, however given the legislative lacuna there appears to be no reason as to why the principles which apply to consideration of a settlement under Order XXIII of the CPC cannot be applied for settlement in subject matter under section 320 of the CrPC or section 147 of NI Act.
However, in cases of breach of trust occurs when someone is entrusted with a certain duty, and then proceeds to breach that duty. For criminal breach of trust, all the victim is required to do is to lodge a police report. Whether in criminal or civil proceedings the burden of proof lies with the complainant. In India Cases relating to Defamation is both a civil or criminal offence. In Civil Law defamation falls under the law of Tort which impose punishment in form of damages awarded to the complainant. In criminal cases defamation is bailable and non-cognizable and compoundable offence.
The key to avoiding constitutional challenges is to examine each individual case to make sure it does not call for any of the procedural or substantive protections offered defendants in a criminal proceeding. In ordinary civil suits due process requirement are satisfied under the interest balancing a preponderance of evidence standard for the burden of proof and no right to appointment of counsel. Instead of different resources provided to litigants for seeking reliefs in civil and criminal matters, they do not hesitate to exploit the criminal machinery in civil matter and abuse the process of law. The Courts must utilize their power to quash the criminal proceedings at the threshold itself, if the complaint does not disclose any criminal offence and the dispute is merely civil in nature.
