D. Manikuttan vs The State of Kerala and Others

V.K. Mohanan, J.—The petitioner is the Chief Paster and General Secretary of Holy Pentacostal Mission at Vattappara in Thiruvananthapuram District, preferred the above writ petition under Article 226 of Constitution of India praying inter alia:

To issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ order or direction, directing the 2nd respondent to transfer the investigation of four cases i.e., Vattappara Police Station Crime Nos. as FIR No. 596/2012, FIR No. 32/2013, FIR. No. 48/2013 and FIR. No. 73/2013, to any other officer other than the respondents 5 and 6 or to any other independent investigating agency or handover investigation to Additional D.G.P., South Zone, Trivandrum or CBCID, Trivandrum unit.

Heard the counsel for the petitioner and the learned Public Prosecutor.

According to the petitioner on 18/1/2005 the mother of the respondents 7 and 8 passed away and the council elected the petitioner as the new General Secretary and thereafter on 26/9/2010 the 5th respondent came to the Sabha Hall and obstructed the worship service, claiming to be the owner of the church and its properties on the basis of some sham and fraudulent documents and because of the continuous treat and nuisance, according to the petitioner, from the part of the respondents 7 to 9, a suit that O.S. No. 867/2010 for declaration of title and for permanent prohibitory injunction with prayer to declare the said sham and fraudulent documents as invalid, was filed and the said suit is pending. It is the further case of the petitioner that due to the vengeance in filing the suit, at about 9 a.m. on 9/11/2012 the respondents 7 to 9 along with thirty others broke open the Church Hall and the Parsonage and committed criminal trespass and damaged house hold articles, marbles and slabs etc, and thereby caused a loss of more than Rs. 20,000/- and when the petitioner and his wife objected the trespass, the respondents 7 to 9 and others threatened them and thereafter they illegally detained the petitioner and caused physical and mental torture. Connected with the above incident, according to the petitioner though belatedly an FIR was registered as Ext. P1. Similarly the petitioner has stated about various incidents allegedly occurred on subsequent dates and connected with the above incidents, Exts. P2 to P4 documents are referred. Now the case of the petition is that the respondents 5 and 6 who are impleaded as in their personal capacity are not expected to do justice to the petitioner and therefore it is absolutely necessary to divert the investigation with the some other officers.

On the other hand the learned Public Prosecutor on instruction submitted that except the Crime No. 32/2013, Crime Nos. 596/2012, 48/2013 and 73/2013, on completing the investigation the Police had filed separate reports in the Court concerned, referring those cases are false. Having regard to the facts and circumstances in the case especially in the light of the submission made by the learned Public Prosecutor according to me, this Court need not retain the above writ petition on the file of this Court particularly, in the light of the fact that the Police after investigation filed final report in the 3 cases mentioned above crime the remedy open to the petitioner is to file protest complaint in the court concerned. It is relevant to note that the Crime No. 32/2013 was registered on 17/01/2013 wherein the offences alleged are under Sections 120-B, 143, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 34 of IPC. From the facts already stated above it can be seen that the entire dispute both civil as well as the criminal arouse in pursuance to the disputes with respect to the Church and Church property. It is also a fact which this Court cannot ignore, that the 3 cases out of the 4 crime already referred by the Police as false. That being the position, the petitioner is not entitle to get any relief as sought for.

In the result, this writ petition is dismissed, but subject to the direction to the Police to expedite the investigation in Crime No. 32/2013 of Vattappara Police Station and filed the report as expeditiously as possible. As the police has already filed refer report in Crime Nos. 596/2012, 48/2013 and 73/2013 of Vattappara Police Station, the remedy available to the petitioner is to approach the same Court, if any grievance survive for him, by filing a protest complaint.

Subject to the above direction and observation, this writ petition is dismissed.