R. BHOOPALAN Vs. S. KANDASWAMY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition is filed under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure to quash the criminal proceedings in C.C. No. 5746 of 1992 on the file of VI Metropolitan Magistrate, Eg -more, for the alleged offences under Sections 186, 342 read with Section 34 Indian Penal Code.

(2.) THE Respondent is the Audit Officer in the Office of the Director of Audit, Posts and Telecommunications at Madras and the Petitioners herein are working in the same office in different capacities such as Assistant Audit Officer, Senior Auditor etc. The Respondent has filed private complaint before the VI Metropolitan Magistrate, Madras, for the above mentioned offences alleging that as he called for a meeting of his subordinate officers to be held on 19.4.91 to streamline the administration and also to consider their problems, the Petitioners herein, in order to prevent the meeting being conducted on 19.4.91 at about 2:00 p.m. entered into his room and gheraoed by sitting around him till 5:30 p.m. thereby preventing him from proceeding anywhere and that he was wrongfully restrained and wrongfully confined within that room and he was unable to discharge his public functions. The Petitioners have filed this petition to quash that criminal proceedings against them on the ground that filing of the complaint against them before the Magistrate is against the Conduct Rules of the Central Services.

(3.) THE direction to deal with the Government Servants who staged the gherao is by a Memorandum of the Central Government in M.H.A., O.M. No. 25/(s)/ll/67 -Ests. (A), dated 13th April 1967, which reads as follows: