The Gujarat High Court has quashed an FIR registered against a Surat advocate saying it was a “classic counter-blast” by police after the advocate, who had been beaten and seriously injured by policemen, filed a complaint of attempted murder against them.The court said the FIR against Mehul Boghara, an advocate and social activist, amounted to an “abuse of police authority”, and was an attempt to create leverage against him.Justice P M Raval held that the allegations by police under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act) were not supported by essential ingredients of the offences, and that continuing the proceedings would be an abuse of the process of law.Also Read | 4 Gujarat farmers ‘tied with ropes, paraded’; High Court sends notice to governmentFour years ago, this is what happenedThe case arose from a confrontation between Advocate Boghara and police that took place on Lasana Main Road in Surat on August 18, 2022.Boghara claimed that he was livestreaming what he described as an “illegal money-collection” racket involving traffic police personnel when Traffic Brigade supervisor Sajan Bharwad attacked him with a heavy wooden log, striking him on the head and legs.Boghara said he suffered serious injuries in the attack and had to be taken to hospital in a ‘108’ ambulance.Following the attack, an FIR was registered against police and Traffic Brigade personnel under charges including Section 307 of the IPC for the offence of attempt to murder. (This offence in now laid down in Section 109 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023)Story continues below this adThe complaint by police against Boghara was lodged by Assistant Sub-Inspector Arvindbhai Gamit, who alleged that the advocate had abused police personnel in casteist language, and assaulted Traffic Brigade supervisor Bharwad and damaged his uniform.Gamit also alleged that Boghara had attempted to extort money from police, demanding Rs 1,000 a day, or Rs 30,000 a month, under threat of making videos of them go viral.The state opposed Boghara’s plea to quash the police FIR, arguing that the allegations related to cognizable offences that should be tested at trial.How the allegations by police failed HC scrutinyThe HC quashed the FIR and all consequential proceedings against Boghara. This is what the court said:Story continues below this adOn the allegation of extortion: The High Court found the extortion allegation difficult to reconcile with the fact that Boghara was livestreaming the incident in full public view.“It is almost impossible to believe that an advocate live-streaming an event on Facebook in full public view would simultaneously attempt to commit extortion (Section 385 IPC) and physical assault on police personnel (Section 332/353 IPC),” the judgment said.“An activist lawyer broadcasting live to thousands of online viewers in broad daylight cannot, by any stretch of human logic, be simultaneously conducting a secret extortion racket,” it said.The court also noted that the purported extortion demand of Rs 30,000 per month that Boghara had allegedly made of Bharwad had not been reported by the law enforcement personnel involved to a higher authority or recorded in writing.Story continues below this adIt appeared that the allegation regarding the extortion had been raised after the assault and had been “engineered solely to meet the threshold of a non-bailable offence to counter the Petitioner’s prosecution”, the court said.The court concluded that on the extortion charge, the essential ingredients of Section 385 IPC were not made out. The FIR was an “abuse of police authority to create a leverage/ settlement against the grave charge of attempt to murder” registered against the police and Traffic Brigade personnel, it said.On the allegation of casteist slurs: The court also found no sufficient basis for invoking the SC/ST Act by ASI Gamit. It said the alleged caste-related remark was a “vague assertion” in a confrontation over traffic enforcement and that the material did not establish the required “intention to humiliate” the complainant specifically because of his caste identity.“The essential ingredients to prosecute the Petitioner under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(u) of the Atrocities Act are conspicuously absent,” the judgment said, adding that the provisions appeared to have been used as an “umbrella shield” to insulate the police personnel from quashing proceedings.Story continues below this adOn the allegation of assaulting public servants: On the allegations of assaulting public servants and causing hurt to deter them from performing their duties, the court noted that the material before it did not establish that Boghara had used physical force against the personnel.It also pointed to the absence of medical injury certificates or medico-legal reports showing that any police or Traffic Brigade personnel had suffered bodily injuries.The court rejected the allegation that Boghara had damaged Bharwad’s uniform, noting that the video footage contradicted the claim that he had initiated physical contact with the personnel.Relying on precedents recorded in Supreme Court judgments, the HC held that the case fell within the categories where proceedings can be quashed because the allegations were “inherently improbable” or the prosecution was manifestly “malicious”.