BISWAMITRA MAJHI Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure ('Cr.P.C'., for short) with a prayer to release the petitioners on anticipatory bail. Petitioners 1 and 2 are Government servants being employed as Assistant Soil Conservation Officer and Soil Conservation Section Officer respectively. They were entrusted with the work of implementing the project named 'Wasteland Development 'Programmer' in Bargaon Block in the district of Sundargarh. On the allegation that some irregularities had been committed during the execution of the aforesaid project, File No. 39 of 2003 has been opened by the Sundargarh Squad of the Vigilance Department and investigation is going on.

(2.) MR . Panda appearing for the petitioners submits that though till date neither any FIR has been drawn up nor has any search warrant been issued, since the petitioners were entrusted with execution of the aforesaid work and a vigilance enquiry is going on, there is reasonable apprehension in the mind of the petitioners that they may be falsely implicated in a vigilance case and arrested. Therefore, this is a fit case where the benefits of Section 438, Cr.P.C. should be extended to the petitioners. He further submits that some other officers, who had also been entrusted with the same work, had approached this Court and this Court has granted some protection to them.

(3.) THE Supreme Court in the case of Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia (supra), while dealing with an application under Section 438, Cr.P.C. has held that filing of FIR is not a condition precedent to exercise power under Section 438, Cr.P.C. The imminence of a likely arrest founded on a reasonable belief can be shown to exist even if an FIR is not yet filed. The Apex Court has also held that a blanket order of anticipatory bail should not generally be passed. A plea can be said to be founded on reasonable grounds that the applicants may be arrested for a non -bailable offence and specific events and facts must be disclosed by the applicants in order to enable the Court to judge the reasonableness of the plea.