K.ABDUL SALAM Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE above Crl.M.C. under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. is filed at the instance of the sixth accused in Crime No.645 of 1999 of Hosdurg Police Station with a prayer to direct the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court -I, Hosdurg to return the passport of the petitioner bearing No.A 1778536, produced before the said court in Crime No.645 of 1999 of Hosdurg Police Station.

(2.) THE petitioner is the sixth accused in the above crime in which the offences alleged are under Sections 366, 498 and 376 of I.P.C. and during the investigation of the above crime, the petitioner was arrested and when he approached the Sessions court for regular bail, the learned Sessions Judge granted the same on imposing certain conditions among which one of the conditions was to produce the passport before the investigating officer/the second respondent herein. According to the petitioner, he had thus produced the passport as evidenced by Annexure A2 receipt issued by the second respondent. The further case of the petitioners is that on completing the investigation, the Police filed a report and thereafter, the jurisdictional Magistrate committed the case to the Sessions Court for trial and finally, by judgment dated 15.9.2009 in S.C.No.345 of 2004 as evidenced by Annexure AI, all the accused including the petitioner were acquitted and thereafter, the petitioner approached the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court -I, Hosdurg for getting back the passport. As no order was passed by the learned Magistrate, the petitioner preferred the present Crl.M.C. with the aforesaid prayer.

(3.) THE learned Judicial First Class Magistrate -I, Hosdurg by his letter in C.P.No.71/2002 dated 30.7.2014 informed this Court that the above said passport is not available in that court as the same was not produced before the said court and accordingly, the petition filed by the petitioner in that court was disposed of on 30.7.2014. Subsequent to the filing of the above Crl.M.C., as directed by this Court, the second respondent appeared before this Court on 30.7.2014 in terms of the order passed by this Court on 24.7.2014. He submitted before this Court that effort is being made to trace out the passport and the same will be produced before the jurisdictional Magistrate as and when the same is traced out. Thereafter, an affidavit dated 11.8.2014 is preferred by the second respondent, wherein particularly in paragraph I in page 2 of the affidavit, it is stated that: -