Munish vs State of Haryana

M.L. Singhal, J.

This is a Criminal Miscellaneous Petition by Munish and his father under Section 482 Cr.P.C. whereby they have prayed for a direction to the State of Haryana to hand over investigation of case FIR No. 171 dated May 3, 1998 registered at Police Station Sadar Panipat under Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code to some senior officer and for registration of a case against D.S.P. Rattan Singh, S.H.O. Hari Singh, A.S.I. Amar Dass, Driver Lal Singh and constable Azad Singh of Police Station Sadar, Panipat. It may be mentioned here that the later part of the prayer was given up by the learned counsel for the petitioners at the motion stage and, therefore, notice of motion was issued to Advocate General Haryana and respondent No. 2 qua the first part of the prayer only.

It is alleged by the petitioners that case FIR No. 171 was registered against petitioner No. 1 on May 3, 1998 under Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code at Police Station, Sadar Panipat. It is a false case. This case was registered with a view to humiliate and harass the petitioner. This case was managed by S.H.O. Hari Singh of Police Station Sadar Panipat. In fact Munish petitioner No. 1 was taken away by the police on May 3, 1998 at about 8.00 A.M. from his house in the presence of his father, petitioner No. 2 and several others, namely Shri Kul Bhushan Bhaskar, exMunicipal Commissioner without disclosing any ground. Father of petitioner No. 1, Shri Amir Chand accompanied petitioner No. 1 to Police Station Sadar Panipat in the police jeep where petitioner No. 1 was abused, beaten and threatened by S.H.O. Hari Singh, A.S.I. Amar Dass, Driver Lal Singh and Constable Azad Singh in the presence of D.S.P. Rattan Singh. At that time, petitioner No. 2 was also present and entreaties made by petitioner No. 2 to them fell on deaf ears. S.H.O. Hari Singh asked A.S.I. Amar Dass to have complaint from Madan Lal Kalra and register the case. This was complied with by A.S.I. Amar Dass and a case under Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code was registered against the petitioner No. 1. Petitioner No. 2 and several others including Shri Kulbhushan Bhaskar, exMunicipal Commissioner and several other respectables of the town who had come to the Police Station offered bail for petitioner No. 1 as the offence was bailable. Petitioner No. 1 was refused bail and was put in the lock up. He was kept in the lock up for the whole of the night and on the following day, he was produced before the Court. He was bailed out by the Court. Petitioner No. 1 was got medicolegally examined at Civil Hospital, Panipat. Dr. S.K. Gupta found one injury on his person. Petitioner also complained of pain on the back of his chest. These injuries were caused to petitioner No. 1 by S.H.O. Hari Singh, A.S.I. Amar Dass, Driver Lal Singh and Constable Azad Singh under the instructions and in the presence of D.S.P. Rattan Singh. As the petitioners were not expecting justice at the hands of police of Police Station Sadar Panipat, an application was sent to Senior Superintendent of Police Panipat through registered post on May 15, 1998 which was delivered to him on May 18, 1998. In the application, he prayed for handing over the investigation to some police officer who had not worked under D.S.P. Rattan Singh or S.H.O. Hari Singh. No action was taken by the S.S.P. on that application.

The grouse of the petitioners is that they do not expect any justice from the police of Police Station Sadar Panipat. Therefore, the case be got investigated through some officer senior to D.S.P. Shri Rattan Singh.

The respondents contested this prayer urging that case F.I.R. No. 171 dated May 3, 1998 under Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code was registered at Police Station Sadar Panipat on the statement of Madan Lal against petitioner No. 1 and another accused Vipin alias Rinku. The petitioner No. 1 and Vipin alias Rinku are alleged to have used obscene words to the daughter and niece of the complainant on their telephone Nos. 88354, 88353 and 88355 from P.C.O. Telephone Nos. 43815 and 20072 being run by the petitioner No. 1 in his house No. 111Green Park, Tehsil Camp Panipat. This case was investigated by A.S.I. Amar Dass of Police Station Sadar Panipat and after completion of the investigation, challan was submitted in the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Panipat on May 26, 1998 and now the case is fixed for trial. Petitioner No. 1 and Vipin alias Rinku were justifiably challaned as a sequel to investigation made by A.S.I. Amar Dass. It was denied that S.I. Hari Singh or D.S.P. Rattan Singh have any hand in the registration of this case or A.S.I. Amar Dass danced to their tune.

In my opinion, when challan against petitioner No. 1 and Vipin alias Rinku has been put in the Court and the case is fixed for trial, it would not be proper in the exercise of powers vesting in this Court under Section 482 Cr.P.C. to order its reinvestigation. Things would have been different if the case had been at the stage of investigation. In that event, it could have been ordered that the investigation be withdrawn from the police of Police Station Sadar Panipat and a direction could have been issued to Senior Superintendent of Police, Panipat to withdraw the investigation from Police Station Sadar Panipat and entrust it to some other D.S.P. posted at Panipat and to be supervised by him. Now, that stage is over. Still, in view of provisions of Section 173(8) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the learned trial Magistrate is directed to get the matter reinvestigated through some other D.S.P. posted at Panipat. The learned trial Magistrate will direct that reinvestigation be made under the supervision of Senior Superintendent of Police, Panipat. Till the process of reinvestigation is over, the learned trial Magistrate will not proceed further with the trial and the trial before him will remain stayed till the reinvestigation is put before him.

This Criminal Miscellaneous Petition is disposed of with the aforesaid observations.