PANDIAMMAL Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been filed by some of the accused in Spl SC No.25 of 2021 on the file of the III Additional District Court (PCR), Madurai to quash the proceedings as far as they are concerned. The defacto complainant is the third respondent while the fourth respondent is an injured witness. On 24/2/2020, the third respondent as well as the fourth respondent got their lands surveyed and boundaries marked. With the help of the police, they also fenced their properties.

(2.) According to the private respondents, at about 05.30 P.M after the officials left, the accused came to the spot and attacked Suresh and his father causing them severe injuries. The defacto complainant photographed the occurrence as it unfolded on his mobile phone and attempted to rescue the fourth respondent and his father. The defacto complainant belongs to Scheduled Caste. The accused abused him by referring to his community and also attacked him. The defacto complainant suffered severe injuries. The injured were taken to hospital. The statement of the defacto complainant was taken and based on the same, Crime No.39 of 2020 was registered for various offences. Since the defacto complainant was in severe pain, he could not mention the names of all the accused. On 26/2/2020, the names of all the persons were informed to the police. Alteration report was filed on 9/11/2020 by arraying the petitioners herein as additional accused. Final report was filed on 9/3/2021 against all the accused. It was taken on file by the Special Court and summons were issued to all the accused to appear on 20/5/2021.

(3.) The learned counsel appearing for the petitioners reiterated all the contentions set out in the memorandum of grounds and called upon this Court to allow this petition. Per contra, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor as well as the learned counsel appearing for the private respondents submitted that no case for quashing has been made out. The respondents would contend that FIR is not an encyclopedia and that omission to mention the names of the petitioners herein will not in any way vitiate the prosecution. The victims, namely, Lakshmanan, Suresh and Dharmaraj and the eye witnesses, namely, Parvathi, Pasumpon, Machakalai and Uthiran have clearly spoken about the involvement of the petitioners in their statements recorded under Sec. 161 of Cr.PC. Specific overt acts have been attributed to each of the petitioners herein. Relying on a catena of decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, the learned counsel submitted that exercise of inherent powers under Sec. 482 of Cr.Pc in favour of the petitioners will be impermissible. In particular, they contended that the reliability or otherwise of the statements under Sec. 161 of Cr.PC cannot be gone into at this stage. The learned counsel for the private respondents as well as the Additional Public Prosecutor wanted this Court to bear in mind the propositions laid down in State of Odisha v. Pratima Mohanty etc (2021 SCC Online SC 1222), Saranya v. Bharathi and another (2021) 8 SCC 583, State of Bihar v. P.P.Sharma & anr (AIR 1991 SC 1260), Parkash Singh Badal v. State of Punjab (AIR 2007 SC 1274) and State of A.P v. Goloconda Linga Swamy (AIR 2004 SC 3967). They called upon this Court to dismiss this petition.