Allowed

Ram Jagi v. State of U.P. and 3 Ors.

Allahabad HC14 May 2018A227/2970/2018

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

This petition under Article 227 challenged an order by the Chief Judicial Magistrate rejecting an application for FIR registration and directing a complaint case due to alleged collusion by government officials. Finding self-contradiction in the Magistrate's reasoning, the court allowed the petition and remitted the matter for a fresh decision.

What did the court decide?

Impugned order dated 09.01.2017 by Chief Judicial Magistrate sought to be quashed; matter remitted to the Lower Court for fresh decision within four weeks.

Ram Jagi Vs State of U.P. and 3 Ors. — Criminal Trial and Appeal | Allahabad HC (2018)

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Court No. - 49

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Case :- MATTERS UNDER ARTICLE 227 No. - 2970 of 2018

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Petitioner :- Ram Jagi Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Ors. Counsel for Petitioner :- Mahendra Kumar,Rakesh Prasad Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.

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Hon'ble Saumitra Dayal Singh,J.

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Heard learned counsel for the applicant and learned A.G.A. for the State.

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The present petition has been filed to quash the impugned order dated 09.01.2017 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhadohi at Gyanpur by which the application filed by the petitioner for registration of a police case (under section 156(3) Cr.P.C.) has been infact been rejected and a complaint case has been directed to be registered. The revision arising from the aforesaid order has been rejected by the learned Sessions Judge vide his order dated 08.06.2017.

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Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the allegations made his application filed under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. clearly made out a case for registration of an FIR, since allegations were made against the government officials of having colluded and conspired in deleting the name of the petitioner from the revenue record over the land and in recording the names of strangers over that land.

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He further submits that it would be next to impossible for the petitioner to lead evidence in a complaint case when the specific allegations had been made against public functionaries such as the Naib Tehsildar and Halka Lekhpal.

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Also, it is submitted that in view of such allegations, an investigation is necessary to be made into various aspects and the police would have much wider powers to make necessary efforts to collect evidence as may exist and the complaint case procedure may not allow for a full-fledged inquiry to be conducted or concluded within a reasonable time, in a purposeful manner.

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In this regard, the learned Magistrate has noted that there is some discrepancy in the allegations made by the petitioner with respect to date, time and place as also the addresses. Even, if that were the case, it does not appear how the complaint case procedure would allow for a better inquiry. If the learned Magistrate was not convinced with the prima facie correctness

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of the allegations made in the application filed by the petitioner, it is difficult to accept that he could have then taken cognizance of the matter treating it to be a complaint case.

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On the other hand, the learned Magistrate has further noted that in case, cognizable offence is made out from the reading of the application filed under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C., it is open to the learned Magistrate to direct a complaint case to be registered.

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Prima facie, the aforesaid observations made by the learned Magistrate are in self conflict. It makes no sense that though the learned Magistrate was not convinced that a cognizable offence is made out even then he decided to register the same as a complaint case on the reasoning that a fair inquiry could be conducted only upon registration of a complaint case.

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In fact, once the learned Magistrate noted that a cognizable offence was made out, then looking into the nature of offence as alleged, normally, registration of the FIR would have been the regular course to be adopted unless some reason existed to proceed as a complaint case.

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Considering the above, the present petition is allowed . The order dated 09.01.2017 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhadohi at Gyanpur is set aside and the matter is remitted to the learned Court below to decide the matter afresh, in accordance with law, in light of the observations made above, as expeditiously as possible, preferably within a period of four weeks from the date of production of a certified copy of this order.

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Order Date :- 14.5.2018 A. Singh

Ram Jagi v. State of U.P. and 3 Ors.

Case brief

What is this about?

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Ram Jagi v. State of U.P. and 3 Ors.

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