IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL CRIMINAL MISCELLANEOUS APPLICATION No. 403/2007 (Under Section 482 of the CrPC) Pooran Chandra Joshi & Others …….Applicants Versus State of Uttaranchal & Another ……Respondents Mr. Manmohan Tiwari, Advocate, for the applicants. Mr. P.S. Bohara, Brief Holder, for the State. None for the private respondent. 20th August, 2011 Hon’ble Servesh Kumar Gupta, J. By way of this Criminal Miscellaneous Application, it has been sought to quash the chargesheet no. 15/2007, submitted by the police against the 18 accused persons including three applicants as well as the order of cognizance dated 12.3.2007 passed thereupon. The said chargesheet was submitted by the police for the offence of Section 427, 436, 127 IPC. 2. The factual background of the case is that one Shri Dharmanand Joshi was a taxi driver, who used to ply his taxi from Haldwani to Nainital, up and down. Pooran Chandra Joshi, the applicant no. 1; Km Hema Joshi, the applicant no. 2 and Smt. Neeru Joshi, the applicant no. 3 respectively are brother and sisters of Dharmanand Joshi. On 30.1.2006, Dharmanand Joshi went on his said routine job, but did not return to his home. A massive hunt was made to search him, but he could not be traced out on that day. His dead body was found on 31.1.2006, which was lying in the same taxi, he used to drive. Prior to this, an FIR was lodged by Pooran Chandra Joshi, wherein nobody was named as the accused. It was just 2 an information to the police that his brother went missing and he has not returned to his home. On next day i.e. on 1.2.2006, the body was cremated as per rituals. On the same date, the SHO, Kathgodam along with certain other police officials came to know about the public anger and noticed that the public road leading to Ranibag from Kathgodam was being hampered by some demonstration. Then he got this information registered at the police station on his own on 1.2.2006. The case of death of Dharmanand Joshi was investigated and the chargesheet was submitted against one Haseeb Ahmad for the offence of Section 302 IPC. 3. Smt. Chanda Bee, mother of Haseeb Ahmad, who is respondent no. 3 in this case, has been served sufficiently in person but has not turned up to oppose this petition. Only formal counter affidavit has been filed by the State. 4. A chargesheet no. 28/2006 was also submitted on dated 20.5.2006 by the police of Kathgodam against 17 persons for the offence of Section 147, 341 IPC read with Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act relating to the incident of hampering the road by a mob vis-à-vis to the suspected murder of Dharmanand Joshi. 5. The court took cognizance upon this chargesheet on 12.6.2006. This Court has been apprised that the trial in the said case is going on since then. Meanwhile, Smt. Chanda Bee, mother of Haseeb Ahmad moved an application to SSP, Nainital and the certified copy of this application has been filed along with this petition, which is undated. The application discloses that on 1.2.2006, between 1 to 2 pm, a mob of 60-70 persons, including 18 persons named in the impugned chargesheet, tried to enter in her house hurling 3 abuses and sprinkled the petrol and thereafter the house was set ablazed. 6. It appears that no action was taken by the police upon the aforesaid application of Smt. Chanda Bee. So, Smt. Chanda Bee moved an application under Section 156(3) CrPC before the Magistrate on 27.3.2006 for registration of the case and investigation in the matter. It is to be remembered here that the incident was two months’ old, as has been narrated in the application, and the police was also investigating the episode, which concluded into the submission of the chargesheet no. 28/2006 on 20.5.2006 against 17 persons as aforementioned. 7. In order to test the prima facie veracity of the complaint, the learned Magistrate ordered the SHO, Kathgodam to report regarding the facts stated in the complaint of Smt. Chanda Bee on 27.3.2006 itself. In this complaint, 18 persons were specifically named as accused, and in the body of the same it was stated that a mob was of 60-70 persons attacked her house. 8. The SHO, Kathgodam having received the order of the Magistrate, made an enquiry regarding the said alleged incident and reported back to the Magistrate on 7.4.2006 that the matter relating to the incident alleged in the complaint of Smt. Chanda Bee is already under investigation by the police bearing Crime No. 78/2006 for the offence of Section 147, 341, IPC read with Section 7 Criminal Law Amendment Act. On this report of the SHO, the Magistrate ordered that since the matter is already under investigation, there is no propriety to register a second case for the related incident alleged to be committed in the same course of action. 4 9. Smt. Chandra Bee filed the Criminal Revision No. 37/2006, wherein only the State was impleaded as the opposite party. The revision was allowed by the learned Sessions Judge, Nainital vide his order dated 26.9.2006 setting aside the order of the Magistrate dated 7.4.2006, with the direction to pass the orders afresh in the light of the observations made in the body of the judgment. 10. The learned Magistrate, pursuant to the observations made in the aforesaid order passed by the revisional court, directed the SHO, Kathgodam to register and investigate the matter under Section 156(3) CrPC, deeming the application of Smt. Chandra Bee to be in the form of FIR. The police thereafter submitted the chargesheet against all the 18 accused persons, named in the said application, for the offence of Section 436, 427, 147 IPC. After submission of the chargesheet, the Magistrate has passed the order of cognizance dated 12.3.2007, which is impugned in the instant petition. 11. It has been contended by the learned Counsel for the applicants that a bare look on the complaint and the impugned chargesheet would reveal that the all the 18 persons who have been named as accused in the complaint of Smt. Chanda Bee have been chargesheeted, and this very fact indicates that the police has not gone into the depth regarding the veracity of the alleged incident. 18 persons were named in the complaint of Smt. Chandra Bee and in the same order all those 18 persons have been named in the chargesheet. Had there been any incident as alleged by Smt. Chandra Bee, then why the police did not take trouble to find out the possible involvement of any other person because it has been alleged by Smt. Chandra Bee in her complaint that a mob of 60-70 persons came and attacked her house. No other person out of 5 the said mob, accept those 18 persons, has been named in the chargesheet by the Investigation Officer. It is indicative of the fact that the police did not bother to go into the depth of the alleged investigation and to find out the veracity of the allegations and submitted the impugned chargesheet in very casual manner. This conduct of the police look as if it wanted to anyhow jettison itself from the legal implications of the matter and, in order to do so, it submitted the chargesheet naming only those 18 persons, who were named in the complaint of Smt. Chanda Bee. It is more so because when on the application of Smt. Chanda Bee, the Magistrate directed the SHO to find out the veracity of the incident, then it was reported by the Kathgodam police that the matter was already got registered and was being investigated. 12. It is pertinent to mention that Smt. Rekha Adhikari, who has been chargesheeted in the impugned chargesheet is also named in the chargesheet no. 28/2006, besides Smt. Neeru Joshi, married sister of deceased Dharmanand Joshi and Km. Hema Joshi, unmarried sister of the deceased and Pooran Chandra Joshi, the sole surviving brother of the deceased, have also been named in this chargesheet. It is beyond imagination of any reasonable person that these two sisters, leaving the dead body of her brother lying in the home, would go to the house of the complainant along with other persons in the shape of a mob with intention to sprinkle the petrol and setting her house ablaze. It is indicative of the fact that at least certain individuals including these ladies have been falsely implicated by Smt. Chanda Bee in her complaint just to pressurize them so that they may not depose in the trial going against her son Haseeb Ahmad for the offence of Section 302 IPC. It is the accepted principle of criminal jurisprudence that not even a single innocent person should 6 be forced to face trial and be punished even at the cost of letting free the nine persons, who may be really guilty. 13. In view of the above, this Court is of the view that certainly the manner in which the police has submitted the impugned chargesheet appears to be very casual and is not independent one, and the same appears to have been done under some pressure implicating certain innocent individuals to face the trial for the offence of Section 147, 436, 427 IPC. 14. In the above circumstances, the impugned chargesheet no. 15/2007 as well as the cognizance order dated 12.3.2007 are not sustainable in the eyes of law and the trial no longer can be allowed to proceed subsequent thereto. Resultantly, the chargesheet no. 15/2007 and the order of cognizance dated 12.3.2007 are hereby quashed. Petition is allowed accordingly. 15. Registry is directed to inform the court concerned accordingly. (Servesh Kumar Gupta, J.) 20.8.2011 Prabodh