Suppressing facts amounts to playing fraud with court: SC

New Delhi: Taking exception to litigants and their lawyers suppressing facts of case in court proceedings, the Supreme Court on Thursday warned them saying such acts amount to playing fraud with the court.

Sending a stern warning to litigants who try to get relief by hiding facts, a bench of justices KS Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said, "Court is not a laboratory where children come to play." "Anyone who takes recourse to method of suppression in a court of law is, in actuality, playing fraud with the court, and the maxim "supressio veri, expression faisi", that is suppression of the truth is equivalent to the expression of falsehood, gets attracted," the bench said. It passed the order on a appeal challenging the Rajasthan High Court which had quashed the criminal proceedings against a person after he submitted that Magistrate order for taking cognisance of offence has been set aside and suppressed the fact that charges were already framed against him. The apex court, after going through the records of the case, set aside the High Court order. PTI