HARI SHANKAR JHA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India at the instance of the sole petitioner has been preferred with the prayer to quash the criminal proceeding started against the petitioner by instituting Madhepura PS. Case No. 207/95 (originally types at some places as 207/93), dated 31.7.95, under Sections 3 and 4 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (hereinafter referred to as the Act).

(2.) The FIR has been instituted by one Ram Naresh Raman, the then Executive Engineer, National Rural Employment Programme (NREP), Madhepura. According to the allegations, the informant was occupying the said office, and the accused-petitioner had been transferred to succeed the informant. The petitioner had reported in the informant's office on 31.7.1995 to take over charge from the informant. The District Magistrate had given oral direction to the informant to hand-over charge on 2.8.1995, notwithstanding which the petitioner had assumed charge unilaterally on 31.7.1995 himself and had accordingly informed the informant. According to further allegations, the petitioner had arrived with his own luggage along with a container containing about 10 litres of Ganga water. The FIR itself states that the petitioner had dumped his luggage at the residence of the informant himself. According to the further allegations, the petitioner had told the informant that he had brought the Ganga water to purify the office chamber as well the incumbent's chair so that it is properly washed and purified, because the same was being used by a Harijan Officer. According to further allegations, the petitioner had told the informant that he was a favourite officer of a particular former Chief Minister, and any delay in getting him the charge of his office will prove costly to the DM. He allegedly informed the informant that he was successful in putting the DM at Katihar in trouble. On these allegations, Madhepura PS. Case No. 207/95, dated 31.7.1995, under Sections 3 and 4 of the Act was instituted, and a copy of which is Annexure 1.

(3.) Learned Counsel for the petitioner submitted that it is manifest from a plain reading of the FIR that it suffers from inherent contradictions and is palpably false. He submits that if he had told the informant that the Ganga water had been brought to cleanse the office and the chair which the informant was using because he is a Harijan Officer then, in the submission of the Counsel, the FIR contradicts the statement in the FIR itself that the petitioner had brought and lodged his entire luggage including the container carrying the Ganga water in the informant's house itself. I have, therefore, not the slightest manner of doubt that this completely falsifies the core of the prosecution case and is clearly covered by proposition 5 of the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of State of Haryana V/s. Bhajan Lal, 1992 AIR(SC) 604 which is to the following effect :