NIKHIL DILIP RAJE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RULE , Shri Tulpule, P.P.waives service. By consent heard the learned Counsel for the parties. This is an application under section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code for quashing the prosecution. The Applicants are students coming from respectable families and have no antecedents. One Dattu Bhosale, Conductor of BEST lodged a complaint against the Applicants on 25.9.1994 for commission of offence punishable under sections 332 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code at Matunga Police Station and offence was registered based on the said complaint against the Applicants. According to the prosecution, the story made out in the First Information Report is that on the said date i.e. 25.9.1994, the Accused (present Applicants) boarded the bus and on being asked to take ticket by the Conductor they refused to purchase the tickets and questioned the Conductor's authority. The Conductor told them that as per the rule it is necessary to purchase tickets and thereafter he asked the Driver to take the bus to the Police Station where a first information was lodged by the Conductor on the basis of which the offence came to be registered.

(2.) ACCORDING to the present Applicants, they had gone to the Police Station along with the Conductor as they wanted to lodge a complaint against the Conductor for the treatment meted out to them by the Conductor in the bus, but their grievance was not considered by the Police Officer and thereafter they approached the Police Commissioner Shri Shahani and sought his intervention. The Commissioner heard their grievance and ordered fresh investigation in the matter, inspite of which a summons has been issued against the Applicants on the basis of the complaint lodged by the Conductor and charge-sheet filed in pursuance thereof by the Police in the Court of the Metropolitan Magistrate, Kurla, Bombay being Case No. 485/S of 1996.

(3.) ACCORDING to the Applicants the Conductor asked them on boarding the bus as to where they wanted to go and they told him that they wanted to go to Worli where upon the Conductor further asked as to actually where they want to go, namely Worli Naka or Glaxo, when the Applicants refused to purchase the tickets and allegedly questioned the authority of the bus conductor as stated earlier and the bus was taken to the Police Station.