Apex Court Stays Criminal Proceedings Against Former SP Leader Swami Prasad Maurya In Cheating & Bigamy Case Involving Daughter

The Supreme Court has stayed the criminal proceedings against former Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Swami Prasad Maurya in connection with a cheating and bigamy case involving his daughter.

Maurya had challenged an April 12, 2024, order passed by the Allahabad High Court, which refused to quash the summons and criminal proceedings against him.

The Bench of Justice MM Sundresh and Justice Aravind Kumar issued the stay order while hearing a plea from Maurya, who is currently the president of the Rashtriya Shoshit Samaj Party. The Court issued notice to the State of Uttar Pradesh and sought their response. 

Pertinently, on April 12, the Allahabad High Court had dismissed the former SP leader's petition filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) seeking to quash the entire proceedings in a criminal complaint case against Sanghmitra Maurya (his daughter) and others. The criminal proceedings case was filed against him and his daughter by one Deepak Kumar Swarnkar, who claimed to be Sanghmitra's husband.

Maurya had sought directions to quash the summoning order dated November 16-17, 2023, issued against her for offenses under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The petition also challenged the subsequent issuance of a non-bailable warrant dated April 3, 2024

Swarnkar, a journalist, alleged that Sanghmitra married him according to Buddhist rituals before the 2019 parliamentary elections, with a promise to make the marriage public after the elections. However, after Sanghmitra became an MP, he claims that she, along with her father, began harassing him using police and private goons.

In an earlier development, a special MP-MLA court had declared both Swami Prasad and Sanghmitra Maurya as absconders in the case, which also involves allegations of harassment and issuing threats.

Swami Prasad and Sanghmitra Maurya had approached the High Court seeking to quash the proceedings, but their petitions were dismissed, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court. 

Before the High Court Maurya's counsel had argued that the summoning order was issued without proper reasoning and that the allegations made in the complaint were not substantial enough to implicate the petitioner. It was further contended that the statements made by the complainant and two witnesses did not form a cohesive chain of events linking Maurya to the alleged offences.

However, the Additional Government Advocate (AGA), representing the State had opposed the petition, stating that the incidents mentioned in the complaint were not disjointed, but rather a series of connected events. The AGA had also pointed out that while the complaint was filed against seven individuals, the summoning order was issued only against five, indicating that the Magistrate had applied judicial discretion in making the decision.

The High Court had observed that the complaint, along with the statements of the complainant and witnesses, provided enough prima facie evidence against the petitioner to justify the continuation of the proceedings. Consequently, the Court had found no grounds to quash the proceedings or the non-bailable warrant issued against Maurya and dismissed the petition.

In related news, on January 25, the Apex Court had stayed criminal proceedings against Swami Prasad Maurya in the case where he has been accused of having made "objectionable" remarks about 'Ramcharit Manas', a sacred text in the Awadhi language based on the epic Ramayana. An FIR was lodged in Pratapgarh district last year against Maurya and others on a complaint by a local resident, Santosh Kumar Mishra. Police had submitted a charge sheet against Maurya and others in a lower court, which issued summonses to them. Maurya had claimed there was no evidence against him to corroborate the charge that he vilified the Hindu religious text.

Cause Title: Swami Prasad Maurya v. The State of Uttar Pradesh and Anr. [Diary No. 20711 / 2024]