YUVRAJ SINGH Vs. STATE OF U.T.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who claims that he is doing a work of "fabrication and die machine tools (sic)" under the name and style of M/s Varne Machine Tools in Plot No.8, Industrial Area, Phase-II, Chandigarh, has a grievance that the 3rd respondent, who is Station House Officer, Industrial Area, Phase-II, actively engaged himself as an aggressor along with respondents 5 and 6 and dispossessed him from the premises and locked him out on 02.07.2011. On a complaint by him to the Police Complaints Authority constituted in terms of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Parkash Singh and others Versus Union of India and others, 2006 8 SCC 1 against the act of the 3rd respondent in carrying out an unlawful ejectment from the premises, the authority had examined him and passed an order on 14.10.2011 after collecting evidence of the petitioner's possession that there was prima facie proof that the 3rd respondent Jaspal Singh had acted with bias and prompted by malafides by allowing and assisting the landowner of the building, namely, the 6th respondent to prevent the petitioner from entering upon the property where he had been carrying on his business. The authority observed that the 3rd respondent was guilty of gross abuse of power and misconduct. He was ordered to be placed under suspension forthwith to face departmental action. The SSP, UT, Chandigarh, was requested to order a fair and impartial investigation into the case and order restoration of possession. The petitioner would contend that this direction came to no help to him and he had filed a suit before the civil court under Section 6 of the Specific Relief Act to be restored in his possession and he has approached this court in a situation where the UT, Administration assists the other private respondents to keep him at bay. The prayer in the writ petition, therefore, is to bring the respondents 1 and 2, who represent the UT, Administration to take appropriate action against respondents 5 and 6 and the erring official 3rd respondent.

(2.) The petitioner points out to me the directions of the Supreme Court in Parkash Singh's case that provided that the recommendations of the Police Complaints Authority both at the district and the State level for any action against the delinquent officer shall be binding on the State. The counsel would also refer me to the directions of the Supreme Court where the imperative of such a constitution of authority became relevant in the context of misconduct of police personnel in incidents like death, grievous hurt or rape in police custody or allegation of extortion, land/house grabbing or any incident involving serious abuse of authority. It appears that the UT, Administration that notified the authority had reserved to itself a right either to take action or no action which itself was brought to the attention of court through a writ petition by a human right activist Arvind Thakur in CWP No.11795 of 2012. The Division Bench of this court found that the notification of the UT, Administration was not in conformity with the direction of the Supreme Court in Parkash Singh's case and directed the UT, Administration to amend para 3 (b)(iv) of the notification to bring it in tune of the direction of the Supreme Court. An issue which must have ended there did not so end and the UT tested the order of Division Bench before the Supreme Court in SLP No.3954 of 2014 titled Union Territory, Chandigarh versus Arvind Thakur. The Supreme Court found on a plain reading of Section 54 of the Punjab Police Act that it did not make any provision such as one which the High Court found objection and if the Section itself was silent on the point, the notification should not have empowered the administration to disagree with the finding of the Police Complaint Authority.

(3.) The counsel for the UT has an objection to the maintainability of the petition and states that the directions of the authority could be only to the State and could not have been against a private individual to justify a public law remedy through writ. The counsel would read to me a judgment of a coordinate Bench in Criminal Miscellaneous Petition No.20158 of 2014 that the Police Complaint Authority could go into the allegations against the police personnel and a person complaining of harassment in that case in respect of matrimonial matter could have an alternative remedy and cannot approach the court under Section 482 Cr.P.C. This, according to him, would answer his objection regarding the untenability of the writ petition.