NEW DELHI: Supreme Court has said that criminal law cannot become a platform for initiation of vindictive proceedings to settle personal scores and vendettas, and derided the increasing resort to lodging of FIRs to settle civil disputes. While quashing an FIR lodged more than two decades ago for the offence of cheating in a land transaction case, a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said, "In recent years, the machinery of criminal justice is being misused by certain persons for their vested interests and for achieving their oblique motives and agenda." While Jharkhand high court took 15 years to dismiss the plea for quashing of the FIR, SC took another six years to reverse the HC verdict. Writing the judgment, Justice Nagarathna said given the misuse of criminal law,

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