CHENAJI CHATURJI PARMAR Vs. AJITKUMAR UJMASHI KHANDERIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Simple and innocent on the face of it what it appears is not. This is true both of the question which has surfaced as also of the identity of the petitioner who has invoked the revisional jurisdiction of this Court under S2C. 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereafter called the Code). The question raised is whether the High Court should interfere and quash the order passed by the Sessions Court according its consent to the withdrawal from prosecution on the part of the Public Prosecutor (in exercise of powers under sec. 494 of the Code). This withdrawal is from a prosecution pending against 24 workmen of Gujarat Steel Tubes Limited (for brevitys sake referred to as the Company) who have been subsequently dismissed from service and one of the office-bearers of a Trade Union to which the said workers belonged. And consent has been accorded in the interests of industrial peace. The petitioner is a Security Officer of the Company who is said to have sustained an injury in the course of the incident giving rise to the prosecution which occurred during an agitation stemming from an industrial dispute. In reality however the petition appears to have been inspired and backed by the Company which considers itself aggrieved by the order according consent to withdrawal from prosecution. It appears that a request was made by the learned Public Prosecutor in Sessions Case No. 34 of 1973 for consent to withdraw from prosecution on the ground that it was expedient to do so for reasons of State. The learned Assistant Sessions Judge Ahmedabad (Rural) at Narol heard the learned Public Prosecutor and the learned advocate for the accused in connection with the request made by the Public Prosecutor. Chenaji Chaturji Parmar the present petitioner who was at the material time employed as the Security Officer of the said Company prayed that the consent sought by the Public Prosecutor should not be accorded. The learned Assistant Sessions Judge refused to take into account the objection of the complainant on the ground that he had no locus standi in the matter. In the course of the submissions made before the learned Assistant Sessions Judge it was brought to his notice that the prosecution arose out of an incident which had its roots in an industrial dispute. The attention of the learned Assistant Sessions Judge was called to the attendant circumstances and it was submitted that if the permission was not granted there would persist bitterness between the parties and that if it was granted it would be conducive to healthy relations between the workers and the management. It was submitted that it was in the interest of maintenance of peace and order that the request be granted. The learned Assistant Sessions Judge by the impugned order granted the request. The petitioner has invoked the revisional jurisdiction of this Court under sec. 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure with the end in view to question the legality and validity of the order passed by the learned Assistant Sessions judge according his consent to the withdrawal. Now it is provided by sec. 494 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that the Public Prosecutor may with the consent of the court withdraw from the prosecution of any person and that if such a request is made before a charge is framed the accused shall be discharged. If such a request is made after a charge is framed or when it is not required by the Code that a charge should be framed be shall be acquitted in respect of such offence. In the present case the committal Court had committed the case to the Sessions Court. Therefore the proper order to pass would have been to acquit the accused under sec. 494(b). The learned Assistant Sessions Judge was in error in adverting to sec. 494(a) and passing an order discharging the accused. That error will of course have to be rectified whether or not the order is sustained.

(2.) The main question is whether the learned Assistant Sessions Judge was right in according consent to the withdrawal as prayed by the learned Public Prosecutor under sec. 494 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Now sec. 494 has been widely worded and no limitations have been imposed by the statute. As to under what circumstances the Court should grant consent and what would be the germane considerations for exercising the jurisdiction under sec. 494 the law has been declared by the Supreme Court in a number of cases. The question came up before the Supreme Court in The State of Bihar v. Ram Naresh Pandey and another A.I.R. 1957 S.C. 389. The following principles emerge from the aforesaid decision :-

(3.) It is in the light of these principles that the question before the Court is required to be examined. It must be realised that the opponents who were the accused in the Sessions Case giving rise to the present petition were not ordinary criminals in the sense that they were not persons who indulged in crime as a way of life on account of a moral aberration or on account of their apathy to lead an honest life with the sweat of ones brow. They were industrial workers between whom and the management of the company an industrial dispute was in existence. It is not necessary to enter upon an examination of the exact nature of the dispute and the attendant circumstances with a view to find out who was in the right and who was in the wrong. It is sufficient for the present puposes to realise that in the course of Trade Union activities of the opponents connected with their employment with the employer-Company certain incident arose in the course of which it is alleged that the petitioner who was the Security Officer of the Company and some officers of the Company were injured. Now the parties have filed affidavits bearing on the question as to the circumstances in which the disputes between the parties had arisen. We are not very much concerned with the genesis of the dispute or with the question as to who was at fault. What is not in dispute is that there was in existence some dispute and that there was industrial unrest. It appears from the affidavit filed by the opponents that on January 23 1971 25 workers had staged a stay-in strike in order to protest against the alleged policy of victimization pursued by the management. According to them initially the Vice-President of the Union was removed from service and thereafter the Treasurer of the Union was removed from service. It is alleged that on January 22 1971 an active member of the Union was assaulted and responsibility in this behalf was attributed by the workers to the management. This according to the opponents gave rise to spontaneous and wide protest from all the workers. And the management it is alleged retaliated by dismissing all the 24 members of the Union. It is not necessary to examine whether the allegations are true or untrue. For the present purposes it will be sufficient to bear in mind the background of the atmosphere which obtained prior to the incident. According to the petitioner the incident giving rise to the prosecution occurred on 14 September 1971. It is alleged that the opponent No. 1 the Secretary of the Union delivered an exciting speech and that thereafter the workers rushed into the compound and indulged in acts which gave rise to their prosecution. It is alleged that five persons sustained injuries at the hands of the crowd which had entered the premises of the factory and indulged in the incident.