JANESHWAR RAM Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN the instant writ application, petitioner has prayed for quashing the FIR registered as Bhawanathpur P.S. Case No. 70 of 2005 corresponding to G.R. No. 549 of 2005 for the offences under sections 406 and 409 of the IPC, as well as the entire criminal prosecution pending in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Garhwa.

(2.) QUESTIONS of law as raised by the petitioner in this writ application are,

(3.) SHRI Dilip Kumar Prasad, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner, submits that the FIR was lodged entirely on suspicion and even on going through the entire recitals in the FIR, there appears no definite and reasonable basis even for the suspicion entertained by the informant police officer. Learned counsel explains further that the FIR has been drawn by the police officer purportedly on the basis of some information which he had collected in course of investigation of the earlier case and is based more on presumption than on any definite material either to indicate that any Government money was in fact involved or that such money was in fact entrusted to any of the accused persons at all. Learned counsel argues that the essential ingredients of Sections 406 and 409 of the IPC are conspicuously lacking in the FIR. Learned counsel adds further that even otherwise, admittedly the petitioner herein is a public servant and no prosecution could be launched against him without prior sanction under Section 197 of the Cr. PC. Upon these grounds, learned counsel insists that the continuation of the criminal proceeding on the basis of the impugned FIR amounts to an abuse of the process of the court.