1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY, NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR Criminal Application No.3061 of 2006 In Criminal Writ Petition No.618 of 2005 Satish Mahadeorao Uke, Aged 29 years, Occupation : Architect, R/o Plot No.1227, Parvatinagar, Nagpur. ... Applicant/ Petitioner Versus 1. State of Maharashtra, through its Secretary, Department of Home, Mantralaya, Mumbai-32. 2. Commissioner of Police, Nagpur. 3. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone No.2, Civil Lines, Nagpur. 4. Inspector of Police, Police Station Sadar, Nagpur. 5. Yashashvee Yadav, Presently Superintendent of Police (Rural), Civil Lines, Nagpur. 6. Dharmdas Malumal Ramani, Aged Major, R/o Plot No.12, Karim Layout, S.B.I. Colony, Gopalnagar, Nagpur. ... Respondents/ Non-Applicants 2 Shri A.C. Dharmadhikari, Advocate for Applicant/Petitioner. Smt. B.H. Dangre, Additional Public Prosecutor for Non-Applicants/Respondent No.1 to 4. CORAM : A.P. Lavande & R.C. Chavan, JJ . Date of Reserving the order : 28-8-2009 Date of Pronouncing the order : 4-9-2009 Order (Per R.C. Chavan, J.) : 1. By this application for review, the petitioner in Criminal Writ Petition No.618 of 2005 prays for reviewing the order dismissing the said writ petition passed on 18-10-2005 as also for initiation of action and high level enquiry against the respondents for tampering with the Government record and suppressing facts. 2. Facts, which are material for deciding this application, are as under : The applicant had filed a complaint with Police Station Sadar on 3-8-2005 against respondent No.6 Dharmdas Malumal Ramani. It was the applicant’s case that on 5-8-2005 at 1 p.m., respondent No.6 was arrested by the staff of Police Station Sadar in the premises of the District Court, Nagpur, and taken to Police Station Sadar. The applicant was also asked to come to Police Station Sadar. Respondent No.6 was arrested and necessary entries were made in the arrest and lock-up registers and 3 he was lodged in the lock-up. Respondent No.4, Investigating Officer, received a telephone call from respondent No.5 Shri Yashashvee Yadav, the then Deputy Commissioner of Police. Respondent No.4 left the Police Station at about 2.30 p.m. and returned at about 8 p.m. and released respondent No.6, as directed by respondent No.5. The applicant as also respondent No.6 were asked to attend the Police Station on 6-8-2005. 3. The applicant filed Criminal Writ Petition No.618 of 2005 alleging that the fact of arrest of respondent No.6 had been concealed by altering the record at the instance of Deputy Commissioner of Police Shri Yashashvee Yadav, who influenced and pressurized the Police Inspector to release respondent No.6 Dharmdas Ramani without any orders for release on bail by any competent Court. The three-page writ petition concluded with the following prayers : “i. to issue writ or any appropriate writ to the respondent no.1 and 2 to call the record in crime No.225/2005 registered on 3/8/2005 as the record of arrest has been scored out and the whitening has been applied on the document dated 5/8/2005 i.e. record of arrest of respondent no.2 Police Station Sadar which amounts to fabrication of said document. ii. Also to issue appropriate directions to respondent no.1 and 2, who have not performed 4 the duties laid down by the procedures and shielded the respondent no.3 from arrest and released from Police Lock-up and thus avoided to produce before the concerned court. iii. Any other directions as deemed fit may also be granted in the facts and circumstances of the case.” 4. Considering the nature of allegations made, this Court had directed the respondents to produce the lock-up register, arrest panchanama, station diary, etc., and had also called upon the respondents therein to file affidavits-in-reply. After perusing the arrest register and lock-up register of Police Station Sadar, this Court observed that the allegations made in the petition were not true. It was noted that the Deputy Commissioner of Police had asked the Investigating Officer not to cause any arrest in the matter and to allow Dharmdas Ramani to go without causing any arrest. This Court then recorded a prima facie satisfaction that the petitioner had made reckless allegations, which were false, and observed that the Court did not want to take any action against the petitioner, but proposed to forewarn him. The petition was then dismissed with costs quantified at Rs.10,000/-. 5. The petitioner filed Criminal Writ Petition No.166 of 2006, whereby he prayed for calling the relevant record from Police Station Sadar, alleging that it was tampered 5 and for initiatiation of action against the officers responsible. He also prayed for a direction to the respondents to refund the costs imposed on the petitioner in Criminal Writ Petition No.618 of 2005. By order dated 24-7-2006, the petitioner was granted leave to convert the writ petition into application for review and accordingly this application for review has been filed. 6. The applicant contended that respondent No.6 was arrested in the premises of the District Court at Nagpur on 5-8-2005 at about 1 p.m., was taken to the Police Station, and the fact of his arrest was entered in the arrest register. He was then locked up after making necessary entries. He submitted that the record produced before this Court, when Criminal Writ Petition No.618 of 2005 was decided, was forged and fabricated. The applicant stated that he obtained copies of necessary documents and relevant information by applying to the Commissioner of Police and found that the official record had been tampered, especially the arrest register concerning entries made on 5-8-2005. He alleged that the pages were changed and the page on which the whitener had been applied on the name of respondent No.6 had been removed and replaced by page containing fresh entries. According to him, a station diary entry at No.58 was missing and either the entry was deleted or substituted so as to adjust the entries on the page while re-writing the station diary. It was alleged that the lock-up register was also tampered with and the entries therein were re-written. He, therefore, 6 sought review of the order passed on 18-10-2005 in Criminal Writ Petition No.618 of 2005. 7. The applicant also caused the documents to be examined by a Handwriting Expert and has filed the report of the said Expert Shri Sanjay Kotwal, who concluded that the entries in the left-hand side and right-hand side on page No.145 of the arrest register were not taken in the same sitting and were not in the same hand. 8. In his affidavit-in-reply, respondent No.5 Shri Yashashvee Yadav, the then Deputy Commissioner of Police, who was alleged to have intervened to secure the release of respondent No.6, stated that he had indeed called the Investigating Officer along with the case diary and on perusal of the case diary, came to the conclusion that it was a white collar property related offence, which required thorough investigation, and, therefore, he issued directions to collect substantive evidence and investigate the offence properly. 9. Respondent Nos.2 to 4, i.e. the Commissioner of Police, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, and the Investigating Officer, also filed affidavits-in-reply denying that any false, fabricated or tampered document had been produced before this Court. It was stated that since various police personnel make entries in the arrest register, the entries are in different handwritings. Station diary entry No.58 dated 5-8-2005 was missing, because inadvertently 7 after entry No.57, entry No.59 was entered. The respondents prayed for dismissal of the application with heavy costs. 10. The respondents also caused an enquiry to be made into the allegations and the enquiry was conducted by Deputy Commissioner of Police, Shri Kanade. His report was enclosed with the reply to the additional affidavit filed by the applicant. The enquiry too revealed that there was no such tampering of record, as was alleged by the applicant. 11. We have heard Shri A.C. Dharmadhikari, learned counsel for the applicant, and Smt. B.H. Dangre, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for respondent Nos.1 to 4. 12. The contention of the applicant that the record was tampered with, is founded on his observation that the various entries in the arrest register are in different handwritings. This has been duly explained by the respondents, who point out that since the entries are made by different officers, they are bound to be in different handwritings. It seems that the applicant had been influenced by the fact that the stationery, i.e. the registers in which entries were made, was not from the Government Printing Press. This too has been explained by the respondents by pointing out that the supply was from a private Printing Press and was made by the Commissioner of Police by his order dated 30-12-2004, i.e. long before the 8 entries came to be made. This is not unusual. If the supply from the Government Printing Press is found to be inadequate, the Heads of the Departments do not stop working, but get the requisite items from the local market. It seems that without considering these natural probabilities, the applicant jumped to his own conclusions and made allegations against the respondents. 13. The learned counsel for the applicant also submitted that the enquiry report by Shri Kanade, appended to his affidavit dated 14-8-2009, would show that respondent No.6 was in fact taken in custody, which amounts to his having been arrested. He submitted that there is no other consequence of taking a person in custody. 14. We are afraid that the learned counsel for the applicant is unnecessarily placing unwarranted emphasis on the meanings of words loosely used by the police personnel in conduct of their day-to-day work. The police officers routinely may detain persons for the purpose of enquiry and may effect arrest only if it is found that such arrest is warranted. Therefore, even if respondent No.6 was indeed detained by the police, which fact is not denied, as may be seen from the report of Shri Kanade, it does not amount to respondent No.6 – Dharmdas Ramani having been arrested. Consequently, there would be no occasion for making entries in the arrest or lock-up register. Therefore, the explanation by the respondents is perfectly 9 plausible. 15. The learned counsel for the applicant submitted that the object in requiring police to record every step that they take in course of investigation, is to ensure that they do not abuse the powers vested in them. He submitted that arresting a person without showing his arrest and then letting him off was highly objectionable. As the person, who had reported the crime, the applicant had a reason to be aggrieved by such a conduct. He submitted that the manner in which the record was kept by the police, was not of such significance for the applicant as the actions taken were. The applicant found that respondent No.6 had been taken in custody by the Investigating Officer and then he was let off on the admitted intervention of respondent No.5 Shri Yashavee Yadav, and, therefore, had a reason to allege that the investigation in his case was being tampered with. He submitted that considering that the applicant had a justification for making allegations, the conduct of the applicant could not have been condemned by the order, review whereof is sought. He submitted that in view of the justification that the applicant had, the applicant should not have been castigated or made to pay heavy costs of Rs.10,000/-. 16. The learned Additional Public Prosecutor for respondent Nos.1 to 4 contended that what the applicant felt, or could have felt, cannot be determinative of the matter. The applicant had not blurted out his feelings or 10 sentiments in the company of his friends, but had chosen to give vent to those feelings by filing a petition before this Court. She submitted that the applicant should have been circumspect and should have taken proper care before airing his views in a judicial proceeding, and, therefore, the conduct of the applicant was rightly disapproved (but not condemned) by this Court. 17. As to the costs, the learned Additional Public prosecutor submitted that they were justified considering the time and energy that was lost in defending the applicant’s misadventure. She pointed out that this Court had specifically observed in the order under review that the conduct of the applicant was not a matter of scrutiny before this Court and though the Court was prima facie satisfied that the applicant made reckless allegations, the Court did not propose to take any action against the applicant. She, therefore, submitted that in the circumstances, the order need not be reviewed. 18. We have carefully considered the rival contentions. It appears to us that the petitioner had mistaken the detention of respondent No.6 as arrest and had gone on to make allegations about tampering of the record on the basis of such assumption. He then imagined that the record had been tampered with because the registers were not from the Government supply, but had been obtained from the private Printing Press. His inferences based on difference in the handwritings was also 11 out of his ignorance of the manner in which the officials of the Police Station make entries in the various registers. Omission of station diary entry No.58 is also hardly of any significance. The justification and explanation furnished by the respondents in the affidavits-in-reply is plausible. We do not see that any tampered material was placed before this Court when the petition was dismissed and, therefore, see no reason to review the order. 19. The application is, therefore, rejected. Judge Judge. Pdl.