1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO.551 OF 2011 (Chandrabhan s/o Balaji Meshram and others vs. State of Maharashtra and another) __________________________________________________________________ Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. Shri S.A. Deole, Advocate for the applicants. ------- CORAM : P.V. HARDAS AND S.B. DESHMUKH, JJ. DATED : OCTOBER 18, 2011 This is an application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure praying for quashing of the first information report lodged against the applicants in respect of offences punishable under Sections 33(1) and 52 of the Indian Forests Act registered by the Range Forest Officer, Ramtek, District Nagpur. The applicants claim to be in possession of the forest land and cultivating the same. According to the applicants, they have filed a civil suit claiming legality of their possession and had also 2 filed an application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure praying for temporary injunction restraining the respondents from disturbing their possession. The case of the applicants is that the Civil Court had accordingly passed an order restraining the respondents from disturbing the possession of the applicants. It is also urged by the learned Counsel for the applicants that despite order of the Civil Court, tractor of the applicants has been seized, which amounts to committing breach of the order of the Civil Court and appropriate application for punishing the respondents for action under the Contempt of Courts Act has already been filed. Since undisputedly the applicants are in possession and are cultivating the forest land and they have not been able to point out before us that their possession/cultivation of the forest land is legally authorized, the applicants, prima facie, according to us, would be guilty of the offences punishable under the aforesaid Sections. These observations are made on a prima facie examination of the averments in the first information report. 3 Since the first information report discloses prima facie commission of the offences, we are not inclined to interfere in the present application. The application, therefore, being sans merit is dismissed summarily with no order as to costs. The question whether the possession of the applicants is legal and proper and whether the order of the Civil Court creates an umbrella against the prosecution of the applicants are matters to be decided by the trial Court at the time of recording of evidence. JUDGE JUDGE khj