GEETHA Vs. SUB INSPECTOR OF EXCISE MUDIGERE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE first writ petitioner is a lady against whom Crime No. 57 of 2002, which was registered on 30-9-2002 for commission of offences attracting Sections 176, 420, 498, IPC, is pending at the Mudigere police Station, Mudigere circle and taluk. The second petitioner is the husband of the first petitioner and also arrayed as an accused in the said crime number.

(2.) THE petitioners have sought for quashing of the proceedings in this crime, number, which is now on the file pf the JMFC, mudigere, with the police having filed a report before the Magistrate.

(3.) IT is the case of the petitioners that an excise case in CC No. 248 of 2000 at the instance of the Sub-Inspector of Excise, mudigere (first respondent herein) is pending against one Yogamma wife of neelakantegowda for having violated Sections 11 and 14 of the Karnataka Excise Act, 1965 (for short, the Act) punishable under sections 34 and 43-A of the Act; that summons had been issued to the said accused person and the summons having not been served, non-bailable warrant had also been issued; that even thereafter, the police were unable to produce the said accused person before the Court and in such circumstance, the learned Magistrate had taken to task the excise officer who had initiated the proceedings and the excise officer i. e. the first respondent (named as third respondent) to save his skin had falsely implicated the first petitioner in the case and sought to produce her as the said Yogamma and when the first petitioner stoutly resisted such attempt on the part of the first respondent, the first respondent has filed a false complaint before the station house officer at mudigere police station (second respondent)alleging that the first petitioner had impersonated as Yogamma on 23-12-1999; that while a search had taken place at the place/residence of the first petitioner when a mahazar had been drawn and further that the second petitioner-husband of first petitioner-having tried to help the first petitioner inducing the officer to believe that the first petitioner was Yogamma as on the date of search i. e. on 23-12-1999, both of them have committed the offences punishable under Sections 176, 420, 468, IPC; that such a false case is registered in Crime No. 57 of 2002 on 30-4-2002 and in fact both the petitioners had been arrested by the second respondent and produced before the jurisdictional magistrate, who has enlarged them on bail; that the filing of such a concocted and false complaint against the petitioners has resulted in considerable hardship and harassment to the petitioners; that the proceedings in Crime No. 57 of 2002 are illegal proceedings only to harass the petitioners; that the entire proceedings are at the behest of one HR nagaraju, who is an employee of the local excise contractor and who, it is claimed, figures as a witness to the panchanama purported to be drawn at the residence of the petitioners on 23-12-1999; that the petitioners are not even aware of the proceedings in CC No. 248 of 2000; that the petitioners have nothing to do with the said case; that the first respondent is trying to falsely implicate both the petitioners in Crime No. 57 of 2002 and the first petitioner in cc No. 248 of 2000; that it is a misuse and abuse of the powers and procedure under the Act as well as the provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure and that the proceedings in Crime No. 57 of 2002 deserves to be quashed by issue of a writ of certiorari and a further writ of prohibition should be issued to restrain the respondents from proceeding with the case in CC No. 248 of 2002 by producing or involving the first petitioner as Yogamma (accused) in that case and for such relief.