Balbir Singh vs State of Uttaranchal and Others

Hon''ble Servesh Kumar Gupta, J.—By way of this criminal miscellaneous application, moved under Sections 482/483 of Cr.P.C., the prayer has been made to quash the chargesheet no.60/2006 submitted by the Investigating Officer of P.S. Laksar as well as the order of cognizance dated 4.8.2006 passed by the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Haridwar registering a criminal case no.3322 of 2006 against the applicant Balbir Singh as well as two other accused persons Vipin and Raju. The said chargesheet was submitted for the offence of Sections 3/7 of Essential Commodities Act r/w Sections 504/506 IPC on the basis of an FIR which was lodged by one Shri Shiv Kumar Saini, resident of Village Ismailpur within the territorial jurisdiction of P.S. Laksar on dated 30.11.2005. The incident is of the same day at about 3 PM, when Shiv Kumar with the assistance of other villagers Rohit, Sukhveer, Rajesh, Raghpal, Arvind and Vinod (all witnesses of FIR) apprehended the black-marketing of the kerosene oil which was allegedly being done by the accused persons. Sri Balbir Singh is the licence holder of a fair price shop in village Ismailpur and he was running such a shop for a long time. Shiv Kumar along with his companions, afore-named, nabbed 200 litre drum, filled with kerosene oil, when it was being transported from the shop of Balbir Singh situated in village Ismailpur to another village Bakarpur in an Eicher Tractor. When nabbed by villagers, it is alleged that Balbir Singh abused and intimidated all of them with a threat to kill. At the same time, a sizeable number of villagers assembled. Having noticed a large gathering of the villagers, Balbir Singh absconded from the spot, however his companions Vipin and Raju were caught on the spot. All the villagers took the above kerosene oil, along with accused Vipin and Raju, to the concerned police station where the FIR was lodged at 5 PM, bearing crime no.204 of 2005.

The investigation was made by the police which ended in the submission of chargesheet, as stated above, and the learned Magistrate thereafter passed the impugned order of cognizance.

It has been contended by learned counsel for the applicant that there was no breach of Control Order on the part of the petitioner. On the other hand, learned AGA for the State by drawing the attention of the Court towards Clause 3 of U.P. Kerosene Control Order, 1962 which prohibits that "no person shall sell, offer for sale or storage for sale of the kerosene oil except under a licence granted by the Licensing Authority of the district in which he carries on business", argued that the petitioner could not show any licence for transporting 200 litres of kerosene oil to another adjacent village named above.

It was further argued on behalf of the applicant that along with the chargesheet, no control order was filed by the prosecution, while it was a mandatory requirement for doing so, at the time of submission of the chargesheet. This argument does not hold water at all for the reason that the chargesheet cannot be thrown away simply on this technical ground, in as much as, the control order, passed by the State, is a coded Rule and that can be produced at the relevant time before the Court, therefore, by not annexing the control order along with the chargesheet, is not such an infirmity as to belie the entire investigation made by the Investigating Officer.

It has been argued on behalf of learned AGA that when this much of irregularity and blackmailing on the part of the petitioner was noticed and complained of by the villagers to the concerned authorities, an enquiry was set up wherein the facts were found to be true in the administrative side also and thereafter the District Supply Officer passed the order of cancellation of the petitioner''s licence, on the recommendation of the District Magistrate, Haridwar and the appeal preferred by Balbeer Singh, against the cancellation of his licence, has also been failed. At the same time, learned counsel for the applicant has apprised the Court that against the order of the said cancellation, he had filed a petition before this Court wherein the said orders, cancelling his licence, were stayed and that petition is still awaiting adjudication by the High Court.

Be that as it may, having heard the pros and cons of the case and perusing the contents of the allegations as well as the evidence collected by the I.O., the Court is of the view that the prosecution, based upon such a serious crime, should not be stunt by exercising the powers of Sections 482/483 Cr.P.C. by this Court. All the factual aspects will have to be considered only by the trial court. In the opinion of this Court, there has been no abuse at all of the process of the court in conducting the prosecution of such black marketeers in the court below. The petition is totally meritless which is liable to be dismissed. Petition is dismissed accordingly. Stay order granted by this Court on dated 16.12.2006 is vacated. Let the information be sent to the court below to proceed with the trial ahead expeditiously and conclude the same (which has already been delayed having been protracted by petitioner in this Court) preferably within six months from the date of receiving the copy of this judgment.