PASANG YOLMO Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revisional application has been preferred under Section 482 of the Cr. P. C. praying for quashing of the proceeding being Special Case no. 146 of 2006, as pending before the Judge, Special Court (CBI), calcutta.

(2.) CASE of the petitioner is that he is a W. B. C. S. Officer and at present posted as Sub-Divisional Controller in the West Bengal Food and Supplies department. He joined the post of Sub-Divisional Controller, Food and supplies Department, Darjeeling on 1. 2. 1982. One Mr. N. Dasgupta, inspector of Police, C. B. I. , Siliguri started a criminal case on the basis of source information under Sections 409/477a of the I. P. C. and 13 (2) read with Section 13 (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the petitioner and one Prithwish Chandra Pal. It has been atleged in the complaint that said Prithwish Chandra Pal while functioning as Inspector-in-Charge, FCI godown, Darjeeling during the year 1990-91 dishonestly issued certain quantity of wheat, sugar, rice in excess of the actual allotment. On the basis of such complaint, a criminal case was started and after completion of investigation charge-sheet was submitted against the said Prithwish chandra Pal and also against the present petitioner.

(3.) ACCORDING to the petitioner there is no reason for submission of charge-sheet against the petitioner. He is in no way connected with the alleged misdeeds of Shri Prithwish Chandra Pal. The shortage or misappropriation of the food articles in question, if any, was done at the instance of said Prithwish Chandra Pal and the present petitioner is in no way connected with the matter. According to him, due to the peculiar geographical condition of Darjeeling District, Food Department decided to take steps during rainy season for providing buffer stock of foodgrains in the said district to meet the natural calamities during the rainy season. Often there is landslide in the district. So sometimes it was not possible to send the foodgrains to district places and as such in order to meet such exigencies, the Food Department issued circular to the Sub-Divisional controller/rationing Officer to take suitable steps for creating buffer stock of foodgrains in the rainy season to meet the said exigencies. As such, being a subordinate officer, the petitioner took steps in that respect and by exercising his discretion, allotted food items in favour of various M. R. Dealers and their indents were suitably modified keeping in mind those circulars and then the indents were sent and the indents were modified accordingly and advice list was sent to the concerned Inspector of the food and Supplies Department. If the said Inspector manipulated the advice list, as sent by the petitioner in allotting foodgrains to the M. R. Dealers illegally, then the petitioner cannot be held responsible for that. Under such circumstances, the petitioner prayed before the learned Judge. Special Court for his discharge. But, the said prayer was rejected. Although, the petitioner did not challenge the said order at the initial stage, but subsequently by filing this present petition, the petitioner has claimed that there is no basis for proceeding against him so far as this case is concerned and the matter was allowed to be pending for a long time without any reason whatsoever thereby denying the petitioner's right to get speedy justice Due to all these reasons, the petitioner has prayed that the proceeding, as pending against him, should be quashed immediately, if not for anything else but for the sake of natural justice.