Crl.M.Appl. No.1 of 2024 in Crl.A.No.1900/2024 & Crl.M.Appl. No.1 of 2024 in Crl.A.No.1905/2024 These applications under Section 430(1) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, has been filed seeking suspension of sentence of the applicants/accused persons in S.C.No.1313 of 2015 on the file of the Court of Session, Kollam. The accused persons11 in number have been found guilty of the offences punishable under Sections 143, 147, 323, 324, 326, 307 read with Section 149 IPC. They have been sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment for the aforesaid offences. The sentences have been directed to run concurrently. Therefore the maximum period of imprisonment they will have to undergo is five years. Crl.M.Appl. No.1 of 2024 in & Crl.M.Appl. No.1 of 2024 in & Crl. Appeal Nos.1900 & 1905 of 2024

2. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners as also the learned Public Prosecutor.

3. The registration of the first information report is the process in terms of which the criminal law is set in a cognizable case. True, the first information report and all further proceedings thereto can be quashed by this court either to prevent abuse of the process of any court or otherwise, to secure the ends of justice where the allegations made in the first information report, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, do not, prima facie, constitute any cognizable offence, or where the criminal proceedings is manifestly attended with malafide and/or where the proceedings is maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance on the accused and with a view to spite him due to Crl.M.C.No.4440 of 2018 5 private and personal grudge. It is, however, settled that the power to quash the first information report is a power that must be exercised sparingly and with circumspection in rarest of rare cases. It is also settled that the court would not be justified in embarking upon an enquiry in such cases as to the reliability or genuineness or otherwise of the allegations made in the first information report. The court cannot also enquire whether the allegations in the first information report are likely to be established [See M.Narayandas v. State of Karnataka, (2003)11 SCC 251].