RAM BADAN CHOWBEY & ANR. Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these Rules are heard analogously. This judgment will govern all the cases The prayer is for quashing the initial proceedings pending before the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Asansol. The relevant cases are :

(2.) The Chief Mining Officer, Government of West Bengal, lodged a First Information Report in each of the cases alleging that upon receipt of certain information he visited Joydanga Collery and found accused persons cutting coal at different places. He found coal so extracted kept in a heap by the labourers under orders of the employees i.e. the accused. In view of the Supreme Court decisions reported in AIR 1980 SC 2031, 1682 and 1308 which have finally disposed of the question regarding the validity of the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Amendment Act, 1976 that any extraction of coal from a mine or working a mine in violation of The Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Amendment Act, will entail the liability of prosecution under the provisions of the said Act and makes it illegal to work or extract any coal from the coal mines which have been nationalised by virtue of the Act. In view of the decisions cited above, the petitioners in each of these cases are liable under Sec. 329 of the Indian Penal Code. The petitioner, Ram Badan Chowbey (accused/petitioner) was appointed Receiver in respect of the collieries in question. In Title Suit No. 436 of 1979 as Receiver he moved an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India challenge the validity of The Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Amendment Act, 1976. On 29.2.80 the petitioners obtained the impugned orders restraining the respondent from interfering with the working of the said colliery. He also moved an application before the Honourable Mr. Justice D.K. Sen on 23.5.80 and His Lordship appointed the petitioner and another as Special Officers and directed them to sell the coal which had already been raised by them lying at the pithead of the colliery. Another application was moved before Mr. Justice B.C. Basak and Hit Lordship directed the respondent in the above-noted cases to obey the orders passed by the Honourable Court on 29.2.80 and 23.5.80 and these orders are still in force. It is the further case of the petitioners that whatever they did, they did so by order of Court, being appointed Receiver and hence sanction for their prosecution is necessary.

(3.) On behalf of the State, opposite party/respondent it is submitted that such contentions of the petitioners are untenable in view of the decisions o the Supreme Court referred to above The question that requires consideration is whether in view of the decisions of the Supreme Court without further directions from the Court concerned in the individual cases in which receivers have been appointed by the Court the prosecution of these receiver without the sanction of the Court concerned is tenable in law. In my opinion the receiver will be governed under Sec. 75 of the Indian Penal Code in as much as he carries out the order of the Court appointing him Receiver and, there fore, it is necessary first to draw the attention of the Courts concerned which have appointed him as such that their appointment is of no legal effect after decision of the Supreme Court cases referred to above and get a discharge of the receivers and not straightway to prosecute the petitioners as have been done in the different cases without obtaining consent of the Courts as in necessary in such cases.