The Supreme Court (SC) has recommended making IPC section 324, which relates to voluntarily causing injury, compoundable to lessen the burden on courts.
Justices Markandey Katju and TS Thakur said the section and “many other offences” should be made compoundable. They have already suggested to the law commission and law ministry that suitable amendments be made in CrPC section 320 to make several non-compoundable offences compoundable.
This, the judges said, would “greatly reduce the burden of the courts”. They, however, added that settlement or compromise was not permissible in serious criminal acts.
Compoundable offences are those which can be settled outside court. When an offence is compoundable, the aggrieved party can allow compromise against compensation.
According to the original CrPC of 1973, an offence punishable under IPC section 324 could be made compoundable with the leave of the court. A 2005 amendment made the section non-compoundable, which means a case will continue even if the parties arrive at a settlement.
But last year, a bench of justices Arijit Pasayat and AK Ganguly offered another interpretation of the amended law. It noticed that the amended CrPc Act of 2005 had not been brought into force yet.
“Therefore, the offence under section 324 IPC is still compoundable with the permission of the court,” the bench said, while allowing a petition by Diwaker Singh who had been sentenced to two years by a Patna court. The court rejected a plea by Singh and the complainant, who was the aggrieved in the case, to amicably settle the dispute. The high court too declined to scrap his conviction. However, SC granted him bail in 2004.
